The Bookmine
by Kadi219
Summary: Written for the #MCHiatusChallenge Week 2 - Alternate Universe. When Andy met Sharon... in a book store.
1. Chapter 1

**The Bookmine**

 **By Kadi**

 **Rated K+**

 **Disclaimer:** This is not my sandbox, but I do love playing in it!

 **A/N:** Written for the #MCHiatusChallenge - Week 2. I was inspired by all of the "book store"  & "coffee shop" art that I have been seeing… but it is also baseball season. Enjoy!

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The first time he went into that bookstore it was just on the off chance that he might find something to help out one of his boys. He didn't actually pick that particular store, he just happened to be walking along the sidewalk, returning to his truck, when a display in the window caught his eye. It was for a book that his daughter had mentioned wanting to get for her stepsons. He remembered thinking that he should let Nicole know that the book was already released, and then his mind had wandered, and he found himself questioning whether or not the answer to his problems could be found inside that store. He took a chance on it, because really, what did he stand to lose besides half an hour spent browsing? Nothing at all, and he ended up finding a lot more than he ever imagined.

Andy Flynn was not a man who believed in fate. He didn't much care for coincidences either. Life was what you made of it, and it could go well or badly depending on how much effort you put into it. That was the same thing that he tried to teach his boys, whether it stuck or not, he couldn't say, but he tried.

His boys.

Every year he got a new crop as upper classmen graduated and freshmen cycled in to the program. Such was the life for someone who had chosen to work at a Junior College. Andy had been coaching baseball at that level for just over fifteen years. It was an opportunity that had shown up just when he needed it. It had given him a new career, but it had also saved his life.

Coaching was not something that he had ever aspired to, but he settled in to it after a couple of years and realized that it wasn't just a job. It gave him a chance to help other guys avoid some of the mistakes that he made, to give back while still being part of something that he loved.

There was something very quaint about the little bookshop that he stepped into. Andy wasn't sure if it was the ringing bell over the door, the smell that permeated the interior, or the way that every wall seemed lined with shelves, but he felt as if he had stepped into something different and special. He looked around as he entered; there were a couple of displays near the front of the shop, they depicted popular titles that he recognized from media outlets, although he wasn't that big of a reader himself. There was a freestanding shelf near the main counter that sported a sign promising a selection of New York Best Sellers. What drew his attention, though, were the way the shelves in the store seemed to be near to bursting. Even those that lined the middle of the store seemed to be filled with a number of titles. There were stacks of books at the end of each shelf, and at first glance it might look cluttered, but it was the farthest description from his mind.

It was cozy.

Drawn by the sound of the bell, a woman appeared through an open door behind the main counter. She was carrying a stack of books that she set on the end of the counter before greeting him with a smile. "Hello," the low tones of her voice were warm and welcoming. "Welcome to the Bookmine. Can I help you find something?"

"Just looking around." His response was automatic, but his gaze didn't leave her right away. They were drawn, as they always were when he encountered an attractive woman, to her legs. His gaze swept over her quickly, even as he turned to take in the shelves and the signs above them that indicated their genre. Shapely legs and a pair of strappy, wedge sandals. He had quite an appreciation for the skirt that was dancing playfully around those legs. Even if he didn't find what he needed in the store, it wouldn't be a completely wasted trip, Andy thought.

Self Help or Social Sciences, he had no idea which section he needed. He grimaced quietly as he walked toward the former, since it was closer. He usually hated browsing through those books. It set his teeth on edge and made him sigh.

She watched the man as he seemed to move, quite grudgingly, toward one of the middle sections of her store. Sharon Raydor arched a brow as she lifted the stack of books that she brought from the back again and moved to an empty front display to begin arranging them. Everything about the way he moved spoke of a man who wanted to be anywhere but where he currently stood. Her head tilted and a smile played at her lips. She knew his type. They came in looking for something specific, but didn't want to admit it. Far too macho to ask for help, so they would browse for a while, ill at ease and trying to avoid the inevitable. Sharon wondered what his particular quest was?

He was good looking, but older. There was still some dark peppered through his hair, but it was mostly silver, not that she found anything wrong with that. He wore a sport coat over a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, all of which appeared to fit him well. She would even go so far as to say that he was attractive. In her experience, that usually did not mean anything. He had gone directly to the Self Help section, which could indicate that he was looking for something to spruce up his middle life existence. It could be as simple as figuring out how to date after fifty to needing help in the bedroom.

Sharon folded her lips together to hide a smile and shook her head. She left him alone while she arranged the display. Her son was probably going to rearrange it later, but they would see about that. This was for his favorite author and series of books, after all. Sharon waited until she heard the fifth sigh and a low grumble before she stepped back and angled a look toward the man who was now scowling at her bookshelves. The corners of her mouth twitched but she controlled her expression. She smoothed her hands down over her skirt and strolled toward him.

He had a hand braced against the top shelf. He was leaning forward slightly, eyes narrowed as he read through titles. Sharon arched a brow at the pose. Her lips pursed for just a moment as she clasped her hands in front of her. Yes, definitely attractive. "Are you sure that there is nothing that I can help you find?" She kept her tone low, and when his scowl swung toward her, she offered a warm, understanding smile.

She moved closer and it was her perfume that caught his attention first, floral, expensive if he guessed correctly, but subtle. It seemed to suit her. Her hair fell in soft layers around her face and shoulders, brown, but with red and gold highlights. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled at him, and behind the lenses of her glasses, he noticed that they were the oddest shade of green that he had ever seen before. It reminded him of driving up the coast after a storm. Sea swept, he thought. The sound of her voice seemed to settle him, he realized. There was an itching between his shoulder blades as he stood there. He could feel his frustration rising. When she spoke it began to slide away.

Andy straightened. He scratched his thumb across his forehead and waved his other hand at the shelves in front of him. "I'm looking for a book for one of my boys." He made a helpless gesture with his hands before letting them drop. "I just don't know exactly what he needs."

Sharon's lips pursed again and she shifted where she stood. "You seem to think that he needs help?" Usually they needed something for _a friend_ , so this was certainly new. "Is your son having trouble in school? Does he need help meeting friends?" She questioned carefully, wanting to draw him toward what he was actually looking for, and not what he might want her to believe that he needed.

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Andy shook his head at her. "No." He cocked his head as he watched her. She was looking at him carefully, almost knowingly. Like she knew what he was going to say, or what he might be looking around for. "My son did okay in school, and he's never had problems meeting girls, or friends," he added. His dark eyes sparkled at her. "Nah, this one is for one my players. I coach," he added by way of an explanation.

"I see." Now she was curious. Behind her glasses her eyes narrowed a bit. She was trying to get a better read on him. He had a nice grin, something that she noticed immediately. He was amused by her, and she decided to let that play out. "Well then, Coach," she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her hair back. "What is it that your star player needs? If his grades are good and he doesn't have any problems with the ladies, perhaps there's something going on in another area of his life?"

Now she was toying with him. Andy chuckled quietly. He shook his head and looked down for a moment. "I wish it was that easy." He placed his hand against the top shelf again and gave his head another shake. "No." Andy took a moment to look at her, the way that her eyes sparkled and her mouth almost turned up into a smile. He would almost bet that it was a great one. He sighed as his own smile melted away. His brows drew together into a frown and his eyes dimmed a bit. "Matt is my second base guy. He lost his parents last year, both of them, in a pileup out on the freeway. He's a good kid, but he's still having a hard time. Hell, he's only nineteen. I've talked to him, his family has talked to him, but he's struggling. The kid used to have an A average, now he's barely passing. He's moody most of the time, and when he's on the field, it's like he barely gives a damn anymore."

Her first response was surprise. She had read him completely wrong. It was quickly replaced by sympathy. As she watched him talk about his player, he ran his hand through his hair. He was very upset about the young man. Not the boy's ability to play for him, but the young man himself. Here he was, a bit out of his element, trying to find a way to help the boy; there was something very touching about that. The smile that had faded when he began his tale reappeared. It was softer, gentler this time. Sharon didn't know why, but she reached out and laid a hand on his arm. "I think I have an idea."

The lower inflection of her voice moved through him. Once again he felt himself calming. When she turned and walked away, Andy followed her. He watched the way she moved, rounding shelves and striding purposefully toward her destination. There was something graceful about it. She pivoted on those wedge sandals, but he was too busy concentrating on her to appreciate the way the muscles in her legs flexed. When she reached a shelf in the back and stopped, Andy stopped beside her. She pulled a book forward and held it out to him. His brows drew together. He read the cover quickly as he accepted it.

 _Remember the Dragonflies_

Sharon watched him turn it over in his hands. He was already reading the back. She smiled gently. "It was written by a woman who lost her husband, and then her mother, but she has to go on a personal journey through her grief to reach a place where she is living on the other side of it. The point is that she realizes, ultimately, that she _is_ living. I found it on the shelf a few years ago when my father died. It helped. It explained a lot of what I was feeling that I didn't realize that I was feeling. When we lose someone at our age, we think that is just the way that life is meant to happen. We are not really prepared for the grieving process, or the healing. Nothing prepares us to move through life without someone we love, and we all experience grief differently, but the point is that we feel it." She touched his hand again as he stared at her. "Matt may be struggling right now, but I am sure that he will surface soon. He may always be a little changed, losing his parents was sudden and tragic, but he will get through this."

He didn't know her. They had never exchanged words before. Hell, he had never even laid eyes on her, but she spoke to him like she knew him. She spoke to him like she knew Matt. Andy held the book in his hands. He didn't know that it would help. Matt didn't really strike him as the reading type, but he would give it a try. That was why he had come in there, wasn't it? To find something to help that young man, "We'll try it." Andy held the book up. "Something is better than nothing right?"

"That's right." She held his gaze for just a moment and smiled. Suddenly, without warning, she felt a little uncomfortable. They were staring at one another, and the moment felt entirely too intimate for a pair of strangers that had not even exchanged names. Sharon turned away from him and walked toward the front of the store. "Was that all that you needed?"

He had watched her cheeks flush a light shade of pink before she turned. She was suddenly flustered and he wasn't sure why. Andy strolled along behind her at a more leisurely pace. He watched her fidget with her hands and tug on the hem of her sweater. He grinned crookedly. He tapped the book against his thigh and cocked his head. "First dates after fifty," he teased. "Got anything that helps make those less awkward?"

He was teasing her. Sharon rounded the counter and looked at him over the rims of her glasses. "I have a copy of _Dating For Dummies_ if you think that will help," she drawled.

Andy placed the book on the counter beside the register and leaned forward. "I don't know, you don't seem all that dumb to me." He flashed his most winsome smile. When she laughed, it broadened. It was a good sound, musical. He realized he was right about her smile. It lit up her face and made her eyes sparkle. They turned a deeper shade of green. Her skin flushed again, but it was glowing. "If you think it will help…"

She rubbed her lips together. Sharon shook her head slowly. "You know, maybe I should get that for you." She gave him a knowing look as she scanned and packaged the book. "I believe that it is right next to my copy of _Avoiding Troublemakers and Pitfalls of Dating_."

"I didn't think that you would be trouble." Andy dug his wallet out of his back pocket and slid his card out of it. He handed it over to her before she even gave him an amount. What the book cost didn't matter. He continued to grin crookedly at her. "It just goes to show, it's always the quiet ones."

"Assumptive." She swept the card through the reader and passed it back. When their fingers brushed, her skin tingled. Her lips pursed. "What makes you think that I am at all quiet, Mr…." She paused here and raised her brows at him. She had no idea at all what his name was.

"Flynn." He shifted where he leaned against the counter. His eyes swept over her. "My friends call me Andy." He paused for a moment. His dark eyes sparkled teasingly. "You can call me Coach."

She laughed again. He was the devil in disguise and laying it on a little thick. Sharon shook her head as she tore his receipt and the credit card slip off and placed them in front of him. "I am going to need your signature, please."

Her tone had gone throaty. He liked it. Andy took the pen that she handed him and quickly scrawled his name. "How about coffee?" He continued to grin at her. "Maybe you'll tell me your name, and I'll decide if we can graduate you from titles."

"I…" It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she couldn't. She had the store to look after. She wanted to spend a little more time with him, Sharon realized. Coffee wasn't a bad idea; it was a nice, casual way for them to continue talking. At the same time, she didn't know him at all, but that didn't feel like a deterrent. Before she could utter another sound the bell over the door rang. She looked toward it. Right on cue her son had arrived. He was a little early, and she wondered if his last class had ended before it should or if he had skipped it. Sharon decided that she would worry about that later. She blinked once and looked back at the man who was waiting for an answer. "How about now?"

He glanced at the kid, watched him walk across the front of the store and drop his bag on a chair behind the counter. "Presumptive," he fired back at her with a grin. He didn't know what it would take for her to do a quick shift change, so he jerked his head toward the door. "How about that place on the corner?" There was a small coffee shop within half a block, perfect walking distance. I'm going to toss this into my car," he indicated the book.

"I'll just wrap up here," she said. "It will only take a minute or two." She would bring Rusty up to speed on the morning's deliveries and where they stood with the afternoon orders. She felt her stomach flutter with anticipation. How long had it been since she felt that?

"Take your time." Andy pushed away from the counter. His grin softened into a pleasant smile. "I'll wait for you."

Rusty watched the exchange. Once the man was gone he gave his mother a careful look. "Who was it that told me, two days ago, not to flirt with the customers?" His brow arched. He smirked at her. "Was that you, or some other woman?"

"I do not know what you are talking about." Sharon turned on her heel and walked into the stock room to get her purse. "I do not flirt," she said primly, but the effort to contain her smile was difficult. "I also believe that what I said to you was to keep the flirting at a minimum when we have three customers waiting in line." She flashed a knowing look at him. "You can hand out your number to the cute boys when there are not other people waiting to be helped."

"Yes, yes, yes…" Rusty rolled his eyes at her. "Work on my timing. I got it."

"Good." She flashed a smile at him. "Now then…"

Sharon didn't have much to tell him. It only took her a couple of minutes to fill him in on what she had done that morning and what she needed from him during the afternoon hours. She felt a sudden flurry of nervous energy sweep over her as she left the bookshop and made her way down the street. Her eyes landed on her _date_ almost immediately. He was leaning against the hood of a truck with his hands tucked into his pockets. She smiled as she approached. He pushed away from the truck and stepped back up onto the sidewalk. "You could have waited at the coffee shop," she told him, but was pleased that he hadn't.

"Could have." Andy fell into step beside her. "But then I would lose the five extra minutes trying to get you to tell me your name. It's all part of a bigger plot," he told her. "You should know all about plots, you work in a book store."

"Hm." She hummed thoughtfully. "Yes, I should. Come to think of it, since I own that bookstore," her eyes danced with amusement, "I should be very well versed in the subject." It was a mild day, and she was glad for that. The breeze wasn't quite as cool as it had been that morning, but the sun was bright. She had to squint when she looked up at him. "Sharon," she told him. "My name is Sharon."

"Sharon," he repeated it, let it roll off his tongue and found he liked the way it sounded and felt. He cast a sideways grin at her. "You can still call me Coach."

She laughed at him again. "What does a lady have to do to earn the right to use your name?" Her brow arched. "You are awfully formal for a guy who asked a woman to have a drink with him before even knowing her name," she teased.

"Well here's the thing," he explained, and his words rumbled quietly between them, "it's all going to depend on how you take your coffee. It's a test."

"Oh, I see," she said quietly, in a slightly breathy tone. Her lashes fluttered and she looked up at him, only to simper playfully, "I do hope that I don't disappoint you."

For some reason his first thought was that she couldn't. Andy just winked at her, however. "I guess we are about to find out."

He held the door for her as they entered the coffee shop. It wasn't terribly crowded for midday. They only had to wait in line for a few minutes, but once they had their drinks they were able to find a table in a quiet corner. Sharon smiled when he held her chair for her. Subtle gestures, like holding the door and deferring to her when the barista had taken their orders; he wasn't smothering her in gentlemanly gestures, they seemed to have come naturally to him. Sharon filed that away for later musing.

She tilted her head at him when they were finally seated. "Well? How did I do?"

"Cheated." Andy grinned at her from across the table. She had ordered a tea, a softly fragrant herbal mix. Somehow, he wasn't surprised. "I've decided to let it go, though. You may call me Andy."

She placed a hand against her chest and gave an exaggerated exclamation. "Oh. Finally!" Her lashes fluttered again and then she laughed. She held the tall, disposable cup between her hands while her smile softened. "So tell me, Andy, how long have you been coaching? Baseball, right? From what you said earlier about bases."

"Yeah." He turned his coffee in his hand and grinned at her. "I've been doing that for a while now. I coach over at LA City College. I guess I've been there about fifteen, almost sixteen years." He shrugged and turned his attention on her. "What about you?"

"Hm." She took a sip of her tea. "We've had the store for several years now. I suppose that you could say it fell into my lap. It has been an interesting adventure, but a rewarding one."

His brows rose. He leaned forward against the table. "You didn't always want to own a book store? What did you do before?" He was curious now; she had seemed so at ease moving between those stacks.

"If I did, I wasn't aware of it." Sharon smiled back at him. She leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs. "I was a lawyer," she explained. "It just never really felt as rewarding as the bookstore has been. It was not a bad way to make a living, but there is only so much lying and fighting that one person can take in their lives before they have to step away. I didn't have the stomach for criminal law so I chose Civil Rights. The bookstore was actually an investment. A friend of mine was opening it and I was only meant to be a silent partner."

Andy wasn't sure that he ever would have pegged her as a lawyer. He watched as she looked away for a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts, but not lost in them. "I guess the silent part of the arrangement didn't work out so great?"

She laughed again. "No, I guess not. As we were putting it together, we both realized that it wasn't for her. I, on the other hand, fell in love with it. So after the first year, I bought her out, and now it's mine. I left my law practice and didn't look back. I have no regrets, especially as it has meant that I have more time for my kids."

"Kids?" he grinned at that. The way her eyes lit at the mention of them warmed him through. "Don't tell me that I have to worry that some guy is going to bust in here and knock me around for hitting on his wife?"

"Lame." Sharon laughed at him. "That was the worst segue into asking if I am single that I have ever heard." Her eyes were twinkling happily, however. "Divorced," she answered before he could continue. She watched him shift in his seat. His ears turned red and her smile widened. She had managed to fluster him, and it was quite adorable. "Yes, I have kids," she continued, "three of them, actually. You just encountered the youngest," she nodded her head in the direction of the bookstore. "That was my Rusty. He works in the store."

Andy shook his head at her. "I would never have guessed that you've got grown kids." He wagged his brows at her and grinned crookedly. "Was that better?"

"Marginally." She leaned forward and rested her elbow on the table. She tucked her chin into her hand. "What about you, Coach Andy. I do not see a ring, but I have learned that hardly matters at all. Any wives that I should worry about?"

"Nope." He mimicked her pose. "She got rid of me a long time ago. Vicki has been remarried for about fourteen years. She doesn't care enough to be jealous over who I spend time with. You're safe."

"Hm." She filed that away too for later pondering. "You mentioned a son, any other children?" Sharon had the pleasure of watching his eyes light up. She realized that there were gold flecks in their brown depths. They seemed to come alive. His eyes crinkled with his smile. It was bright and open. Filled with joy. "I guess that is a yes?"

"Vicki and I had a couple. Charlie and Nicole. My daughter lives in the city, but Charlie is up in Sacramento. I don't see him as much as I'd like, but I guess that's the price we pay when our kids grow up. They're both good kids, though. Nicole has a couple of boys, stepsons. I'm trying to teach them baseball, but all they want to talk about is ballet."

"Really?" She smiled at that. "My daughter is a dancer. Emily is in New York. I understand what you mean about being away from them. She's with a ballet company there. I could not be more proud of her, but it has never been easy to have her so far away."

"You said you have three." Andy tilted his head at her. "What about the other one?" He took a drink of his coffee but his gaze never left her. The color of her eyes changed with her mood, he was learning. Talking of her kids made them more vibrant. He wondered how many different shades they could turn and what it would take to prompt the shifts in her mood that seemed to affect them.

"Ricky." Sharon smiled warmly. "That would be my little computer engineer." She laughed as she said it. Ricky was anything but small. He was as tall as her brothers and all of the men on her side of the family. At his questioning look, she waved a hand through the air. "Ricky started towering over me around the age of thirteen. He did not stop growing until he was almost twenty. He's hardly _little_. He lives in Palo Alto, he and a couple of his fraternity brothers started a software company right after graduation. They are doing very well. "

"So that brings us back around to…" He paused for a moment, "Rusty, right? The youngest? He still in school, or?"

"Yes. Both of my older children moved away when they went to school, but Rusty lives with me. He is going to UCLA, and, well…" She shrugged. It was a long story. "Neither of us is ready for him to move away yet. I haven't had him long enough. Rusty is adopted," she explained. "He only came to me a few years ago."

Her eyes clouded just a bit. Andy leaned closer, concerned now at the slightly downward shift that her mood had taken. "That sounds like it might be quite a story."

"Hm, and probably not one for a coffee date," she said with a smile. Sharon looked down and focused on her tea. "What about you? Was coaching something that you always wanted to do?"

She had grown uncomfortable. Andy leaned back slightly. "It never crossed my mind before I got this gig. It saved my life, though. So I've got no regrets." He watched her brows climb. He could see the question in her eyes but he also saw the hesitation. It was probably much too heavy for a coffee shop date with a woman he just met, but in this Andy had no hesitation, and he had no shame. It was who he was, and while he was ashamed of the man he used to be and the mistakes that he made, he accepted his life as it was now. "I used to play ball," he told her. "I bounced around to a couple of ball clubs early in my career, but I found a home with the Giants. I was a catcher, and not a half bad one," he admitted. "My problem wasn't what happened on the field, it was what I did off of it." Andy looked right at her. He held her gaze for just a moment before saying, "I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for about seventeen years."

That was something that she knew a little bit about. She almost felt disappointed, and wondered that it was her lot in life to be surrounded by addiction in one form or another. He spoke so easily about it, however. He didn't avoid her gaze or make grand declarations. That was not something that she was accustomed to. Sharon found herself leaning forward. "What happened?" She spoke quietly, almost gently.

"What usually happens when you're on the highway to hell," Andy admitted with a shrug. "Crash and burn. I got wasted one night and wrapped my car around a telephone pole. I was lucky that I lived, hell, I was lucky that all I took out was the pole. I screwed up my knee, my team dropped me, and I went to rehab as part of my sentence, ninety days and a DWI. I was damned lucky, but it didn't feel like it at the time. When I got out of rehab, and after I did all the physical therapy, there wasn't a team in either league that would touch me. I couldn't move fast enough anymore, and I was a risk. My wife left me, and she took the kids, and most of what I had in the divorce. I was close to falling off the wagon again, but then a buddy of mine decided to take a chance. We had played together in school, I went into the league and he started teaching." Andy shook his head, chuckled quietly. "He was head of the Athletic Department at LACC. He offered me a job as a base coach. I didn't think I'd like it. Hell, I thought that I was going to hate it, but it wasn't bad. A few years later, I became head coach. I never looked back, I just took one day at a time."

She reached out and laid her hand over his. He spoke so openly, so candidly about his history. Sharon had been lied to and manipulated so many times in the past; she appreciated it more than he could know. He didn't know her, and he had no reason to use it to make an impression on her. She believed him, every word that he spoke, and could not explain why she felt a sense of pride in the fact that he had picked himself up and became the kind of man who would step into a bookstore, and go out of his way, for one of his students. "My ex-husband was…is," she corrected, "an alcoholic. He has fallen back into addiction more times than I can count and in various ways. I know exactly what you mean about crashing and burning. Rusty's mother…" She sighed. "His biological mother," she continued, "is a drug addict. She abandoned him when he was fifteen, but he was in and out of foster care before that." Her heart contracted and her stomach clenched. "I found him rooting through the dumpster behind the shop a few years ago. He was looking for anything that he could sell or pawn for the money to buy something to eat. He wouldn't come inside the shop and I couldn't get him to go home with me. He was too wary of adults. So I gave him my bracelet. I never expected to see him again, but he came back a few weeks later. He asked if he could sweep the floor to pay me back for the bracelet. He was cleaner, and his clothes were fairly new. I found out later that he used the money from the bracelet to buy food and a change of clothes; it got him a few nights at a hostel so that he could take a shower. I hired him to stock my shelves and clean up around the store. He came in twice a week for almost a month before I talked him into going home with me. He never left. His biological mother has been in and out of our lives. She's been in and out of jail and rehab. He wants to believe that she can do better, but he has learned the hard way that it will probably never happen."

"In the meantime," Andy said quietly, "he has you." At some point during her story he had turned his hand over beneath hers. His thumb stroked the top of her hand.

"He has me," she repeated. "I adopted him a couple of years ago. He will always have me. It sounds to me," Sharon continued, "that you are right. You got lucky. When your wakeup call came, you listened to it. Not everyone is that smart, or wants that badly to be better."

"Yeah." He encountered a lot of them at his meetings and in his groups. Some guys wanted to work the program; others were using it and trying to manipulate it. "So," he shrugged at her, "now that we've completely blown all the coffee date rules right to hell, and you know most of my dark and dirty secrets, what are you going to do if I ask for your number?"

"That is a very good question." Sharon placed her chin in her hand again. Her lips pursed thoughtfully. Their conversation had taken a decidedly serious turn. She didn't feel exactly bad about that. Talking to him was easy. "I think that you are going to just have to do it and find out. You already know where I work," she pointed out with a smile.

"I do." He seemed to consider. "Let's say I ask, does that mean that you would go out with me?"

Her eyes sparkled. "I am already out with you."

Andy grinned at her. "Yeah, but I think we both know that I was talking about going out again, troublemaker."

"Well…" Sharon reached into her purse for a pen. She wrote a number down on a napkin and slid it toward him. "If you ask, I will think about it." She lifted her tea and pulled her purse onto her shoulder as she stood. "I should get back to the store. I promised Rusty that I would help with the afternoon orders."

He glanced at his watch. They had been there for quite some time, longer than he thought. As he stood up, he lifted the napkin and carefully folded it. "I'm going to ask you out to dinner," he told her.

A smile curved her lips. "I am probably going to say yes," she told him. "So try not to wait too long." She smiled as she walked around him and strode toward the exit. Sharon laughed when the phone in her purse began to ring before she had barely made it to the sidewalk. "Yes?" She answered, and drew the syllable out playfully.

"How about tonight?"

Sharon shook her head as she walked. "You are being assumptive again. I could have plans this evening."

"Tomorrow night then." Andy grinned. He had watched her walk by the coffee shop's windows as he dialed. Now he stepped outside the building and watched as she moved down the sidewalk, away from him.

"Persistent," she teased.

"Interested," he replied. "Is this how you probably say yes? Here I am, taking a chance…" He sighed, but he was teasing her.

Sharon laughed at him. She stopped in front of the bookstore and looked back. She could see him, and he wasn't so far away that she couldn't make out the crooked grin that had made her stomach flutter earlier. "I really do have plans tonight," she told him, "and tomorrow is Rusty's birthday. How about Tuesday evening?"

"My boys have a game." Andy pouted a bit. "Wednesday?"

Sharon felt like chuckling again. "How about I come to your game and you can take me to dinner after? Maybe I can meet Matt."

His face lit up, despite the fact that she was too far away to see it. Andy grinned widely. "That's a date."

"Yes it is." Her hand rested against the door to the bookstore. "I will see you then, Andy."

"Wait…" Andy had just a moment of doubt. "Are you sure? It's a college baseball game. We can do Wednesday night, if you would rather…"

She rubbed her lips together and hummed thoughtfully. "Bottom of the eighth, runners on first and second, and the Dodgers best hitter up to bat. He popped a fly foul. You couldn't get under it fast enough for the out, but you caught the runner on second trying to steal third. Giants won five to four, and you ruined a perfect series sweep. I wanted to throttle you. I love baseball. I'll see you Tuesday, Andy."

She hung up on him then, but Andy was sure that he was wearing the widest, goofiest grin anyone had ever seen. He stared at his phone for a moment, after finally managing to pull it away from his ear. She loved baseball, and she remembered seeing him play. There were not a lot of people that could recall the plays, good or bad, of a has-been catcher who had ruined his own career just as it was peeking. Andy tucked his phone back in to his pocket and walked back to his truck.

He went in to that store to find a book. He found Sharon instead, and he couldn't wait to see her again. He wondered if Nicole had picked up those books for the boys yet… maybe he would see if there was anything else on her reading list. The Bookmine had just become his new favorite place. He couldn't wait to go back.

 **-TBC-**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Bookmine**

 **By Kadi**

 **Rated K+**

 **Disclaimer:** This is not my sandbox, but I do love playing in it!

 **A/N:** This was originally meant to be a one-shot for the #MCHiatusChallenge, but the response  & request for continuance has been overwhelming. Everyone was so wonderful! Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy the date night!

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

It was an interesting game. However the rest of the evening turned out, the game itself could never be faulted. Sharon was on the edge of her seat during the first two innings. Both teams were good, and they were well matched. LACC's pitcher was slow to warm up. The opposing team from LA Harbor was on fire from the first pitch. The game was tied early in the second inning, though. Sharon watched as they held that tie until the fourth inning. LA Harbor scored four runs that inning. Sharon winced as they took a five to one lead. She wondered why Andy didn't pull his pitcher. The kid was throwing grape fruits out there, balls that barely broken the 80mph mark.

She watched him from her seat just behind home plate. She saw him look toward his bullpen a few times. There were pitchers warming up, but he never motioned for one of them to come out. After LAH scored their fourth run off of a two-run homerun, Sharon watched him walk out to the mound. She thought that it was over then, he would send for another pitcher. She leaned forward in her seat. Her eyes squinted as she watched him. There was no way to hear what he was saying to the young man on the mound, but the boy was intent upon every word. He was nodding. Just as Sharon expected Andy to ask for the ball and send him on his way, he gave the boy's shoulder a pat instead. Then he turned around and walked back to the dugout. Her brows climbed in surprise.

The kid had just given up four runs. It wasn't an impossible deficit to overcome, but a mistake like this could put team morale down and make it almost impossible to come back. She couldn't fathom why he would keep the pitcher in at this point, but Sharon sat back and decided to wait it out. The kid struck the next two hitters out and then the team left the field to take their turn at bat.

The next two innings passed slowly. It looked as if the game was done. Then something very interesting happened. At the top of the seventh, the pitcher from LA Harbor began to flag. His arm had grown tired. His fastballs slowed. LACC scored six runs that inning. They were back on top with a seven to five lead. Their pitcher was slow to warm, it seemed. He had held on since that almost disastrous fourth inning and now with a lead, he took them out of the seventh. The team was rejuvenated; a fact that was proven when they scored three more runs the following inning. By the eighth it was finally time for a relief pitcher. The kid only had to hold on for a single inning, and he did. By the time Andy called out his closer, his team was riding an eleven to five lead.

Sharon wanted to know what he had said to that pitcher. Whatever it was, it had worked. In the meantime she walked down to the fence to congratulate his team on a well-deserved win. She stood near the gate, and out of the way as the team congratulated their opponents on a well-played game and then began gathering their gear. It took several minutes for them to begin filing out, but the boys made their way off the field with the coaches trailing behind them.

He found her leaning against the fence. The blue jeans and leather jacket that she had worn looked even better than the skirt she wore on the day that he met her. "Hey." He grinned when he saw her. Andy hefted his bag over his shoulder and moved through the gate and out of the way of the other coaches and staff. "So what did you think?"

He looked different in his ball cap and polo, but no less attractive. The royal blue of his team's colors suited him. "Hi." She greeted him with a bright smile. Sharon pushed away from the chain-link fence to stand closer. "That was some game," she told him.

"Yeah." Andy rested his hand against the top of the fence beside her and leaned forward slightly. "I was a little worried for a minute. They pulled it out in the end. I knew they could. Sometimes they just need a little bit of room to settle in. Tonight was one of those nights." They had another game on Thursday, and they would see if the same was true.

"I was worried for more than a minute." Sharon pushed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Her head tilted. "I kept expecting you to pull your pitcher. You didn't, why is that?"

"He's nervous." Andy shrugged. He pushed his ball cap back with his free hand. "The kid is a good pitcher, he just needs a little more experience. He was a relief pitcher at his high school, but he's too damned good for that. He's never started before coming here. Raul is also a freshman, so he's young, not much experience. He did okay though."

Sharon smiled gently at the way that he defended his player. "He really did. I was impressed. Once he warmed up, he pitched a really good game." She arched a brow at him. "What did you say to him during the fourth?"

"Oh." Andy bowed his head. He chuckled quietly. "That was nothing. Just a little pep talk."

The light was dim on this side of the dugout, but there was enough illumination from the field lights that she could tell that his ears were turning red. Sharon's lips pursed. She stared at him over the rims of her glasses. " _Just_ a little pep talk?"

She didn't sound convinced. Andy reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked at her from beneath the rim of his cap and grinned crookedly. "It might have been a little more than that."

"Hm." Although her lips curved into a smile, Sharon continued to watch him closely. "What exactly did you tell him, Andy?"

The way her tone dropped, growing thicker, and just a little husky, had him leaning closer. Andy shrugged at her. "I just told Raul that I had a date tonight," he admitted, "and that the pretty lady sitting behind home plate might appreciate it if we gave her a good show. Otherwise she might not go out with me again."

Sharon's eyes widened. She laughed. "Arrogant!"

"Confident." Andy pushed away from the fence and adjusted the strap of his equipment bag on his shoulder. "I need to take this stuff back to the field house and talk to the boys. It shouldn't take long, they're going to want to go out and celebrate after that."

"Go ahead." Sharon's smile softened. "I'll wait."

He stepped back and jerked his head toward the field house. It loomed large and dark in the shadows on the other side of the parking lot. "Walk with me?"

"Sure." She fell into step beside him. They discussed the game and the amazing come back that his team had made on their way across the parking lot. He was aware that Sharon hadn't driven tonight. She had taken a cab to the ball field since they were going out afterward. Andy escorted her to his office inside the field house before he left to take care of his team.

Almost an hour passed before he joined her again. Sharon hadn't minded, she remembered well how these things went, and from his office she could hear the boys celebrating in the locker room down the hall. They had earned it. When Andy returned she realized that he had taken a few extra minutes to change. She smiled as she stood to join him. He looked very nice in jeans and a crisp, white button down. He was wearing a sport coat again, and he had traded his field sneakers for boots.

"Are you ready to go?" He held the office door open for her.

She joined him at the door and as they moved down the hall, she felt his hand hover against her lower back. A smile tugged at her lips. "You haven't exactly told me where we are going tonight," she pointed out. Sharon glanced at him, and saw him look down and grin.

"I have a couple of ideas in mind." When they reached the door at the end of the hall he pushed it open and held it. They stepped into the cool night air and he laid his hand against her back again as he guided her toward his truck. "It was all going to depend on how the game went."

"Hm." They stopped beside his truck on the passenger side. Sharon shook her hair back and smiled up at him. "Well, since I don't know what you had in mind, I think that it is only fair that I tell you now that I have decided that tonight is going to be my treat." When his eyes widened, her bottom lip trembled with the urge to not laugh. "I have something of a tradition about game nights."

"Is that right?" He wasn't macho enough that he would throw a fit about a woman wanting to treat him to dinner, but that was not how he had envisioned the night going. Andy cocked his head at her. "What are you thinking?"

"Well you see, when Ricky played," she clasped her hands together in front of her because she was tempted to toy with the front of his jacket, "game day, or night, was always followed with pizza. If his team won, there was ice cream afterward."

"Ah." Andy nodded slowly. "I see." He leaned toward her until their faces were only inches apart. His voice dropped to a low rasp. "What if they lost?"

Sharon shrugged at him. Her eyes were sparkling. "There was ice cream." She continued to watch him while he thought about it, but her response had induced a grin. "What do you say, Coach? I might know a place."

At this angle and proximity her words were becoming less important. His gaze had dropped to her mouth instead. Andy settled a hand on her shoulder and let it slide slowly down to circle her wrist. Then he pulled the passenger door open and held it for her. "I think we're going for pizza."

They stood like that for several moments. He was still close to her. His fingers were warm against her skin. When his thumb stroked the inside of her wrist she drew a quick breath. She felt her skin tingle and heat move up her arm. The scent of his aftershave was filling the air between them. It had an almost woodsy scent, but it was subtle, and suddenly she wanted to get closer. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and every thought that she had, everything that she told herself about being careful with this guy and getting to know him, seemed to fly right out of her head.

His gaze was drawn to the sight of her tongue sweeping across her bottom lip. Andy's jaw clenched. He almost groaned out loud. He pulled her closer and lowered his head. She was looking back at him and there was a sense of anticipation hanging on the air between them. It was her eyes that caught his attention, however. They had darkened, and although the lighting in the parking lot wasn't great, he could tell that they had become a shade of deep emerald. It made him wonder what color they would be after he kissed her.

The moment was broken when a young man walked past the truck. He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He was tall and lanky, and waved as he passed them. "Night Coach."

Andy's head lifted immediately. He took a step back and watched the young man walk by. "Good night, Matt." He stopped. "Oh hey, Matt, come over here."

The kid turned and walked over to join them. "Yeah, Coach?"

His hand had dropped away from Sharon's wrist and he felt the loss of contact immediately, but he focused on Matt instead. "I wanted you to meet someone." He looked down at her, and whatever she felt before was already hidden behind a warm smile. "Sharon, this is Matt." The player that they had talked about, and the reason that they met.

Her smile softened as she held out a hand for the boy. "It's very nice to meet, you Matt. That was a very good game. Congratulations."

"Thank you." He shook her hand, but then he dropped his gaze to the pavement beneath them. He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against a small pile of loose rocks. "And thank you," he continued, a little more hesitantly, "for the book, ma'am."

Sharon wasn't sure if Andy had given it to him yet, but it seemed that he had not wasted any time. "You are very welcome, Matt. I hope that it helps."

He looked up at her from beneath thick lashes and nodded solemnly. "Yes ma'am. Me too." He didn't like this feeling that he had, that he was floating through life and none of it really meant anything anymore. At this point, Matt was willing to try anything.

"Go on," Andy could tell that Matt wanted to be anywhere but there right then. "Get out of here. Go home. Get some rest."

"Yeah." He let out a small sigh of relief. "Thanks, Coach."

As he turned away, Andy's eyes narrowed. "Matthew." The boy glanced back and he gave him a long, knowing look. "I mean it. Go home." He didn't want him out drinking until the wee hours of the morning with his buddies. Matt would call it celebrating, but he knew that it would be more about numbing everything else that he felt. The kid had class in the morning, and if his grades dropped any further, he would have to bench him.

Matt sighed. He nodded slowly. "Okay, Coach." He was busted, and since he really hadn't wanted to go out anyway, he would do that. It might not hurt if he took a look at that book some more anyway.

Sharon watched him walk away and when he was out of hearing range, she turned to Andy. "Do you think that he will?" Her head tilted curiously.

"Go home?" Andy shrugged. He sighed as he shook his head. "I really don't know. I hope he does. If he doesn't have a hangover at practice tomorrow afternoon, I'll know he went home."

He was truly worried about that boy. Sharon laid a hand on his arm. "Matt seems like a very nice boy, Andy. If he told you that he's going home, I think that you can believe him." The young man had not made the promise reluctantly. He had seemed more relieved to her.

"Yeah. Maybe." He wasn't sure anymore. Andy pushed it aside. He waved a hand toward the inside of the truck. "Let's go. You promised me pizza."

Her lips curved into a smile. "Yes. I did, didn't I? Pizza and ice cream as I recall." He took her arm and helped her into the truck. Once the door was closed and he had walked around to join her, she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her stomach was still fluttering with anticipation. He would have kissed her if they had not been interrupted, and she was wondering now if she would have stopped him. Sharon wasn't altogether certain that she would have. Now she wondered how the rest of the evening would play out, and if they would have that moment again.

She also questioned that she should slow this down. She only just met this man; she barely knew anything about him. She liked what she did know, however, and despite the voice in the back of her mind that was telling her to be cautious, to tread carefully, she wanted to know more.

Andy stopped beside the truck. He hesitated on the driver's side and took a breath. She was a beautiful woman. She was funny and intelligent. In that moment he had wanted her. He told himself to reel it in. It wasn't that he necessarily believed that she was delicate, but she deserved to be treated with respect, and however much he may want her, he also wanted to know more about her. This was not one of his casual flings. She was not one of the younger women that he could spend a couple of weeks having fun with before the passion eventually burned out because there was nothing else between them but sex. He had grown tired of that a while ago, and even if he hadn't, there was something about this woman that made him want to proceed carefully.

He kept that in mind as he pulled open the driver's side door and climbed into the truck. Andy flashed a smile at her as he put the key in the ignition. She smiled back at him and his hand itched to reach out for hers. Instead he put the truck in gear and drove them away from the parking lot. He didn't know exactly what was ahead of them, but he wanted the chance to find out. Screwing it up this early in the game wouldn't give them that opportunity.

Sharon had him drive out to Santa Monica. It was a nice night, and traffic wasn't too bad. They put the windows down and enjoyed the drive while they talked about the game and how it could have gone differently. She surprised him. She wasn't one of those seasonal fans, the groupies that got on board when a hometown team was doing well and the entire city was feeling the energy. Sharon really liked baseball. Her brothers had played, she told him, and then her son. She always rooted for her hometown team, but there were other teams that she enjoyed watching, because at the end of it, she just liked a really good game.

It was something that they had in common, and as they reached Santa Monica, Andy realized that there was more that they both liked than just a game. Sharon was an avid reader, but she also enjoyed old black and white movies. For modern features she preferred a good psychological drama to something filled with massive amounts of violence or special effects. She wasn't against a good comedy, but she preferred simple humor, rather than vulgarity and modern slapstick attempts.

Andy had a thing for old westerns, and Sharon laughed as she imagined him kicked back watching guys with exaggerated southern drawls riding horses and shooting down the bad guys. He was a fan of the mystery genre, the old film noir type, and within moments of mentioning it they realized that they had several favorite films in common. Andy was already thinking as he parked his truck on the street outside a row of older buildings that were flanked on each end by newer, trendy spots that sported bright lights and neon signs, that he should take her to a movie soon. That was, if she agreed to go out with him again.

She had him bring her to a place called _Joe's_. It was a narrow, red brick building with tables arranged at it's front. A hole in the wall pizza joint that Sharon promised him had the best in New York style pies. The place was pretty crowded as they moved inside. Andy laid a hand against Sharon's back and pressed in close as they made their way through the crowd at the door. When they reached the hostess's stand, Sharon explained that they would need a table for two, and would prefer one of the tables out front if it was possible.

In spite of the crowd, they only had a ten-minute wait. Once they were seated, the wait was worth it. They had a fantastic view of the beach and the moonlit ocean. After their drink orders were given to the waitress, Andy rested his elbows against the table and leaned forward. "I have a confession to make," he said seriously.

Her brows rose. There was an underlying amusement in his gaze, so while her curiosity was piqued, she wasn't overly concerned. Sharon matched his pose and tilted her head at him. "This sounds serious. Technically I am still a lawyer, but I feel that I should warn you that anything you are about to say is not protected under client privilege."

"I guess I'm really taking a chance here, huh?" Andy leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. "At the risk of later being turned in and testified against, I feel that I should tell you now… I'm a vegetarian."

Sharon stared at him for just a moment. It was delivered with perfect deadpan. She snorted as her head bowed. Her shoulders shook with laughter. "A vegetarian?" Her eyes were twinkling brightly when she looked up at him. "Then I guess we had better order mushrooms and tomatoes instead of pepperoni and sausage," she said, voice still ringing with laughter.

A broad grin had curved his face. Andy was shaking his head at her. "Did you just snort?" He watched her cheeks turn pink and her head bow again. Her eyes lit up when she laughed. Her skin flushed. "Mushrooms are no snorting matter, lady. This is serious!" He heard her do it again and felt his shoulders shaking as he joined her, chuckling quietly. She continued to laugh and Andy clucked his tongue at her. "Laughing at fungus. I can't believe this. What has that fungus ever done to you?"

"Oh stop it!" She reached over and lightly smacked his arm. He was making fun of her now. Sharon swept her hair back and made a face at him. "If you are going to make me laugh, then you have to deal with the consequences."

"I just told you something important," he argued teasingly. "It was deeply personal and serious, and you're snort-laughing at my expense. I guess everyone was wrong…" He gave her a carefully exaggerated look of disappointment. "It's not the fourth date when you really start to figure out who someone is. It's the second."

"You are absolutely right." Sharon sobered immediately, but the corners of her mouth continued to twitch with mirth. "That was terrible of me. I should not be laughing at your fungus. Absolutely, you should have mushrooms on your half of the pizza if that is what fills you with joy." She paused for a moment and then added, "and I will have sausage on mine."

"That's a compromise," Andy said with a smirk, "that a lawyer would make."

"Oh," she pointed a finger at him, "then I suppose that it is good for you that you are out with a shop owner and not a lawyer. Remember, I am no longer practicing."

The waitress returned before they could continue that little debate. She placed their drinks, iced tea for both of them, on the table and took their pizza order. Sharon flashed a smile at Andy as she ordered a large vegetarian special, loaded with fire roasted tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms. Once the waitress was gone, their conversation settled again.

"So tell me," Andy questioned. "You mentioned helping out with Ricky's baseball team. How did that happen?"

Sharon shrugged. She hummed quietly and turned her tea glass on the table. "My ex-husband wasn't around often when the children were younger. Jack left when Ricky was four. He was in and out of our lives for the next few years. My brothers were too far away, and honestly, I knew the game. I really did not believe that there was anything wrong with a woman acting as an assistant coach. More than that, it was just a lot of fun. Ricky enjoyed it and so did I."

"I'm sorry." Andy could tell that she didn't enjoy talking about her ex-husband. Some of the shine had gone out of her eyes at the mention of him. "I didn't mean to bring up the heavy stuff."

"Don't be." She waved it off. "It was a long time ago. Jack and I finally divorced after the kids left home for college. It is what it is. He is out of my life, for the most part. We still share children, so I have to deal with him occasionally, but most of the time he just cannot be bothered with the fact that he ever had a family."

"That's too bad." Andy had worked hard to repair his relationship with his kids. Too much drinking and too much time on the road had created a rift. Then there was the divorce and his tumble into rock bottom. He had managed it, though. By some force that was beyond him, they had an okay relationship now. He couldn't imagine what his life would be like if he didn't have his kids in it. "I guess his mistakes," he said quietly, and reached out to lightly touch her hand, "are my gain."

Her brow arched at him. A soft smile curved her lips. "Is it?" Sharon studied him. He was looking at her with a warmth that she could feel. He felt bad for the past, but it wasn't pity that he was sending her way. It was sympathy and understanding. He got it. He had lived it. He had been the cause of it for his own family. She didn't know yet if he was really a different person, but she felt that he might be. Sharon's instincts told her that he was genuine.

His fingers slid along hers in a simple, gentle caress. "It's looking really good so far."

Her head ducked as her cheeks colored. A bright smile lit her face. When she looked up at him again, this time through her lashes, her eyes were shining. "Yes," she agreed in a soft tone, "I think that it might be."

Silence settled between them as they studied one another. It was a moment of companionship and hope. The future could take any shape, but they were both optimistic about it. They were open to the possibilities.

The remainder of their evening passed in much the same way. There was laughter and conversation. They discussed their children and their families. Sharon told him more about Rusty and her youngest son's journalistic leanings. They talked about those first tumultuous weeks after he came to live with her, and how frightened she was at losing him to a life on the streets because he was so emotionally scarred. Andy talked of his grandsons and his adventures in learning about ballet because it was something important to them. Sharon found it endlessly amusing, especially as he stuttered over the names of dance moves that his grandsons expected him to understand. They talked about his years growing up back east, as a boy in New Jersey and the trouble that he had gotten into. It was only his aspirations to play professional ball that had ultimately gotten him out of a few bad situations, he told her. He wasn't a saint, and he didn't pretend to be.

Sharon appreciated his candor and his honesty. He told her about his parents. His father had been an electrician and his mother a schoolteacher. He had brothers and sisters and all of them had grown up with an appreciation for working hard and getting their hands dirty. Her father had been a judge, she told him, and her mother a homemaker. She had two brothers, one thirteen months older than she was, and the other not quite two years younger. They were very close. They had gone everywhere together as children. They played ball and climbed trees. She had a sister too, but Helen was much younger, almost five years her junior. They were close, as sisters were meant to be, but when Sharon considered her closest friends, she always thought of her brothers in that regard too.

As the evening wore on, they closed down the little mom and pop pizza joint as they talked away the night. The hour had grown much too late for ice cream, but they found a coffee stand near the Santa Monica Pier and took a stroll along it with their drinks in hand. When Andy loosely tangled his fingers with hers, Sharon let him. Her hand moved into his and their shoulders brushed as they walked.

They finally came to a stop at the end of the pier and stood near the railing. The lights of the carnival and promenade were behind them, but in front of them there was the moonlit ocean. Sharon turned and leaned with her back against the wooden railing. She looked at the man beside her, and this time when she was tempted to run her hand along the lapel of his jacket, she did it. She smoothed away imaginary wrinkles and tilted her head at him. "I had a lovely time," she told him.

"Isn't that meant to be my line?" Andy smiled as he moved closer. The pizza had been her treat, after all. The breeze caught her hair and blew a lock of it across her face. He reached out and smoothed it away with a gentle touch of his fingers. He tucked the errant lock behind her ear and let his thumb stroke the curve of her cheek to her jawline. He tipped her face up gently and bent closer. "I had a good time too." His gaze moved to her lips before being drawn back to her eyes. They were shining in the neon lights from the ferris wheel. The breeze lifted her hair again and this time he caught a whiff of her perfume mixed with her shampoo. It was a subtle scent, floral, and he detected a hint of jasmine.

Sharon drew a breath as he neared. Her stomach turned over in excitement, danced with anticipation. Her lips parted slightly and she let herself be drawn toward him. She could feel her skin tingling as goose flesh rose, but not in response to the coolness of the breeze. When she could feel his breath against her face she allowed her eyes to close. At the first touch of his lips against hers, Sharon lifted her hand to his arm. It was a simple caress, gentle and unassuming. It was too sweet to be chaste. She hummed quietly as his thumb continued to stroke the curve of her jaw. When his tongue moved across her bottom lip in a teasing sweep she wrapped her hand around his wrist.

She tasted of hazelnut, from the coffee that she had ordered. Andy's lips moved to the corner of her mouth and he pressed a kiss there before he lifted his head. His eyes were dark; he smiled down at her and let his thumb slide over her bottom lip. "Can I call you again?"

"Yes." Her voice had gone thick, low and throaty. Her fingers caressed the inside of his wrist as she nodded. "I am very much looking forward to you doing that." She felt warm and comfortable, and with time, she knew that there could be so much more.

"Me too." His hand moved to her neck, and then her shoulder before sliding down her arm to take her hand again. As his thumb moved over her pulse point, he felt her shiver. He gave her hand a squeeze and tugged her close as they began to walk back in the direction that they had come. He was already thinking about when he could see her again. It had been a simple evening, and one that he enjoyed, and he wanted more like that; more of the companionable silence that settled over them as they walked, and more of the feel of her small hand in his. He wanted to feel her soft lips beneath his again, and push his hands into her thick hair.

Those thoughts occupied his mind as he walked her back to his truck. The silence between them was comfortable. He helped her into the truck when they reached it and felt only slightly disappointed when she gave him her address. She lived nearby, only a few blocks away. Had they taken a stroll on the beach, he could have walked her home. It only took a few minutes to reach her townhouse and he pulled into the drive behind a silver sedan that must be hers.

Light was glowing warmly from the windows downstairs. In the space between her house and the one beside it he could see the beach and the ocean. Andy took a moment to study the place before he got out of the truck and went around to open her door. He took her hand again, but instead of making their way up the walk to the front step, Sharon led him around to the rear of the house. There was a low, wooden deck that gave way to the sandy beach beyond. In the center of the deck there was an iron and stone fire pit. There were two sets of wide, wooden deck chairs arranged around it and a couple of small tables between each set.

Andy stood on the deck as Sharon unlocked the double patio doors that opened onto the deck. His gaze swept across the beach to the ocean. Waves were rolling in. She had the sound and sight of the ocean at her backdoor. "That's a hell of a view," he told her.

"Yes." She pushed the patio doors open and walked toward him. "I bought this place on impulse, in part because of that." She looked up at him and shrugged. "After the divorce, with the kids out of the house, it seemed way too big for just one person. I sold it and moved into the townhouse instead." While it was two levels, there were only two bedrooms. There was a large master bed and bath that occupied the entire second floor. A second bedroom and small bathroom could be found on the first floor. Those belonged to Rusty now. "Waking up to the sound of the ocean has been wonderful, but my favorite thing is watching the storms build offshore and move inland.

"Like I said." Andy reached for her hand again. "Hell of a view." He tugged her close again. "So this is goodnight."

"Yes." She toyed with the edge of his jacket. Sharon tipped her head back and smiled up at him. "But you said that you would call me," she reminded him with a smile.

"I will." His head lowered and he caught her lips in another soft, lingering kiss. Andy gave her hand a squeeze before he stepped away. "Is tomorrow too soon?" When her brows lifted, he grinned. "To call you. I don't know what the rest of your week looks like. I want to get on your calendar before it fills up."

"Hm." Sharon let go of his hand and took a step back. "Well, I think that you should start by calling me tomorrow and finding out. I am not entirely certain right now, but I have a feeling there might be an opening for you in my schedule."

He pushed his hands into his pockets and grinned at her. "How much of an opening?" His brows bobbed playfully.

Sharon took another step backward, and then another, until she crossed the threshold of her home. She reached for the patio doors and pulled them toward her. "You are just going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out, Coach." She flashed a wide, teasing smile and closed the doors between them. Sharon flipped the lock before she turned and strode away, a little added sway in her step.

Andy laughed as he was left standing on her deck. He shook his head and waited until the lights on the first floor began to turn out. He turned and walked back around the house to the front drive. As he slid in behind the wheel he looked up toward the second story. The lights had come on there. Andy grinned again as he turned the key in the ignition. He would be seeing her again, and soon, and that was enough to send him away with a smile.

 **-TBC-**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Bookmine**

 **By Kadi**

 **Rated K+**

 **Disclaimer:** This is not my sandbox, but I do love playing in it!

 **A/N:** As always, special thanks to my beta **deenikn8**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

She was humming again. Rusty rolled his eyes. It was all that he could do not to groan out loud. In the last week and a half his mother had been different. It wasn't that he found it unusual that she was happy. Rusty hadn't exactly known her to be _un_ happy before. He had seen her worried or sad, even upset and disappointed, but never unhappy. What he was witnessing now was just… _different_.

He caught her daydreaming and smiling to herself. Every time her phone vibrated or beeped with a new text message she would quickly reach for it. Rusty could always tell when the call or message was from _him_. Her lips would curve into a smile and her face would light up. Then she would turn away from him, and sometimes she would leave the room. Rusty didn't feel that she was hiding anything from him, when he thought about it; he did the same thing when he was talking to someone that he _liked_.

That was the crux of it, maybe. He had never experienced his mother _liking_ someone before. In the years that he had lived with Sharon, Rusty had not known her to date. Not like this. She had friends, and there were a couple of guys that she went out with to social functions. It was never serious, and she never brought them back to the house. Whatever else that she did in her personal life, Rusty didn't know. They didn't talk about _that_.

He wanted her to be happy. But this guy worried him. What did they even know about him? It wasn't like he was someone that she had known for a long time. He was just some guy that wondered into the store one day. Sharon had been out with him a few times since then. He seemed nice enough, and for her sake Rusty really hoped that he was. He was trying very hard to not compare Andy to the guys that he had known in the past, guys that his other mother had dated. It wasn't this guy's fault, or Sharon's, that his other mother had terrible taste in men.

There was one thing that Rusty could not ignore, however. She was humming again. He concentrated on the shelves that he was stocking. They had this week's new releases to put out on the floor. Rusty had volunteered to do it since it was a Tuesday and he didn't have classes. Rusty had loaded up his schedule this semester so that he had Tuesday and Thursday free to work in the bookstore. Sharon always opened the store. She was surprisingly chipper in the mornings and Rusty was glad to let her have that shift. During the week the store was open until eight in the evening. Rusty came in at noon on those days and worked with Sharon until later in the afternoon. They had two other employees that worked in the store, college students like Rusty, that only worked the weekend shifts.

There had been moments when he or Sharon had to fill in on a weekend, but generally speaking the fact that his mom owned the store pretty much guaranteed that they had their weekends free. It wasn't a bad job. Rusty had always liked working for Sharon. Even in the beginning, when he didn't know her, and wasn't able to trust her yet, she had been fair to him. In more ways than he probably deserved back then.

He had started by just sweeping floors. He couldn't believe it the first time that Sharon let him close the store by himself. She trusted him to make the night drop deposit, but by then he was living with her. They had come a long way since then. She had always believed in him, so Rusty was trying to believe in her now. Sharon was usually pretty careful in everything that she did. He was choosing to believe that meant dating too. Although her ex-husband wasn't much of a winner, but she hadn't known that when she married him. To give her credit, she _had_ gotten rid of him at some point.

Rusty twisted to look at her when the humming stopped. She was at the counter going over the sales from the previous week. Sharon had an accountant who did the books for the store, and all of the official paperwork and taxes, but she insisted on keeping an informal accounting of everything. It was a skill that she told him he would need some day, so she was teaching him to do it too. It was responsible, she said, and just good business. Sharon wasn't focusing on the books right at the moment, however. Instead she was smiling at her phone. It was _that_ smile. The silly, happy one that she got every time that _he_ sent her a text message. Rusty rolled his eyes again. His mother had a crush. It was the weirdest thing that he had seen in his entire life.

"Doesn't Prince Charming have a job?" Rusty turned back to placing books on the shelf and making sure that they were aligned perfectly. "He texts you all day. That can't be allowed. He's going to get fired."

Sharon looked away from her phone, but only long enough to cast a warning look at her son over the rims of her glasses. " _Andy_ ," she said, emphasizing his name, "is a college baseball coach. When his team isn't playing or practicing his day is largely filled with paperwork. So you needn't worry." She smiled brightly. "He isn't going to get fired." Her eyes narrowed. "What makes you think that the message is from him? It could be from anyone."

Rusty snorted at her. "You don't smile like that when anyone else texts or calls." He turned where he stood and leaned against the book cart. "Come on, mom. Every time your phone goes off you get that goofy little smile on your face. It only means one thing. _Andy_ ," he said, and put as much inflection on the name as she had. He took his phone out of his back pocket and held it to his chest. Rusty fluttered his eyes and made a good show of mooning over the device.

Her eyes narrowed. "Does the word _grounded_ mean anything at all to you," she asked carefully.

"Really?" He put his phone back into his pocket. "Come on, mom. I'm twenty years old. You can't ground me anymore."

Her brow arched. "Would you like to test that theory?" She continued to stare at him until he conceded the moment and turned away. "That is what I thought." Sharon turned her attention back to her phone. Andy was asking if she would like to have lunch. "And it is not a goofy smile," she muttered quietly.

What she could not deny was the way that her stomach fluttered with excitement when she spoke to him. She could not ignore the thrill that went through her when she saw his messages. They had been out on a few dates since they met, and she wondered again that they were moving too quickly. It felt good, though, to be wanted by someone; to feel respected and appreciated. Andy had not pushed any boundaries that she was uncomfortable with. Their time spent together was wonderful, and she was always left with the sense of wanting to see him again. When they were together she felt light, warm, and at peace… despite the anticipation that hovered on the air between them and the desire that was growing with each touch, each caress of his lips against hers.

They were enjoying themselves. Being together was simply fun. What could possibly be wrong with that? They both had failed relationships and painful memories, but they had both grown beyond that. Yes, being romantically involved at their ages meant involving others, their families and friends, and juggling careers and jobs and expectations. It had only been a little over a week, though. All of those things could be worried about another time. For now, she was just going to ride this feeling of delight that she got at the thought of him.

Sharon smiled again as she replied to the text. She agreed to have lunch with him and placed her phone aside. When the bell over the door rang just a few moments later, she laughed at the sight of him. "You really are presumptive!"

"No." Andy held up bag of takeout from a bistro a few blocks away. "Confident. Besides, you gotta eat, right? If you said no, I would have just taken it back to school with me."

Rusty turned just in time to watch the man lean over the counter and kiss his mother in greeting. He clasped a hand over his eyes. This time he could not suppress the groan. "Oh come on. No one wants to see that!"

"Then don't look." Sharon's lips curved against Andy's. She returned the kiss quickly before she leaned back. "You didn't have to bring me lunch, we could have gone out," she told him.

"Yeah. We could." Andy nudged the bag with his hand. "But we didn't have to. I didn't know what Rusty would like, so I just got some pasta. I hope that's okay?"

Her lips curved into an impossibly wide smile. "You brought lunch for Rusty too." Her heart swelled at that. Sharon leaned against the counter that was separating them. "That was really nice of you."

He shrugged it off. Andy hadn't done it to impress her, but he wouldn't deny that he enjoyed the way that she was looking at him now. "The kid has to eat too," he told her.

"Yes." She continued to smile at him. "I guess he does. I do occasionally feed him."

Rusty felt like banging his head against the wall. When it grew silent toward the front of the store he risked a look. They were just standing there, staring at one another, and both with dopey smiles on their faces. It could have been the most ridiculous thing that he had ever seen in his life, or the cutest. He was going with the former. Rusty turned back around. "God help me."

It was the low groan and the sound of a light thud that drew Sharon's attention away from Andy. She quickly dropped her gaze. Her hair obscured her face and she slid a glance toward her son. He was slowly knocking his head against one of the bookshelves. Sharon could feel her cheeks slowly heating. "You will have to excuse my son," she said. "He has forgotten that he is an adult now and not a fifteen year old child."

The moment that she had looked away, Andy had reached up to rub the back of his neck. "Yeah, well…" He shrugged and shifted where he stood. "I know the type." He worked with kids Rusty's age and a little younger every day. "Wait until he's almost seventy and still acting like that." Andy had taken quite a ribbing for leaving work in the middle of the day to come across town for lunch. Why Provenza thought it was such a big damned deal, he didn't know. It wasn't like he was going to make him run the afternoon practices by himself. Andy would never inflict that on the kids. Louie was the third base coach, and had been with the school a hell of a lot longer than he had. He was also grouchy, opinionated, and the first one to be a friend to the washed up alcoholic, former pro-ball player who had ended up on staff at LACC. Andy tried to give him the benefit of the doubt for that reason, but sometimes, just sometimes, he wanted to throttle him.

Sharon lifted the bag with their lunch. "We can take this into the back," she told him. Before she could turn, the bell over the door rang again.

"No need." Rusty walked quickly toward the front of the store. He grabbed his jacket off a stool behind the counter. "Um, thanks for lunch," he told Andy, "but I have a lunch date." He barely paused long enough to look at either of them. He grabbed the arm of the young man who had stepped into the store and tugged him toward the exit.

"Oh. Uh." Gus blinked. He had only time enough to lift his hand in a brief wave. "Hi Ms. Raydor. Um. Bye…"

Sharon pressed her fingers against her lips. They were gone before she could respond. She shook her head slowly and chuckled quietly. "Well it was very kind of you to include Rusty," she said with a smile, "but it looks as if we are on our own." She tilted her head. "And I have asked that boy a hundred times to call me Sharon," she said of Gus.

Andy had craned his head to watch the boys leave. "Either it's just me or he was really looking forward to that lunch date." He twisted his head back around to look at Sharon. He was grinning crookedly at her.

"No," she said carefully. "It was me." She lifted the takeout bag again and walked around to hang a sign on the door and flip the lock. She would close for lunch. "He was _also_ looking forward to that lunch date."

"Is this one of those _takes one to know one_ situations?" Andy pushed away from the counter and followed her as Sharon walked into the stock room. Once inside he took a moment to look around. It was the first time that he had been this deep into the store. It was a wide, open room. One side was set up with couches and comfortable chairs. There was a desk and a small refrigerator. The rest of the room was filled with overflow shelves, boxes and stacks of books and other merchandise. Andy shoved his hands into his pockets and watched as Sharon laid their lunch out on a small, round table in the center of the room.

Sharon laughed again. "I think that it might be more of an, _oh my god my mother is dating_ and _thank god my boyfriend showed up_ situations." She paused in what she was doing and looked up at him. She was half leaning over the table, one of the takeout containers in her hand. Sharon looked at him. It was the first time that she had mentioned Rusty's sexual preferences in front of Andy. "Rusty is gay," she said plainly. There were so many people in this world that would have a problem with that, and it suddenly occurred to her that this man might be one of them. He was a man's man, blue collar, baseball lover, the kind who still held a woman's chair for her and opened doors. Sharon watched him closely. "Gus is his boyfriend."

Andy met her gaze. He took just a moment to purse his lips at her before he replied. "Well I hope that was his boyfriend. Otherwise he might be in trouble with some other guy at some point." Andy inclined his head at her. "Did I pass that test?" He took a step toward the table and smiled at her. "Sharon, I don't care if Rusty is gay. I don't care if he is blue with purple polka dots. I would hope that he doesn't care that I'm not. I don't want him being upset that I like you, so why should I care if he likes Gus? It wouldn't matter to me if Gus was a Lisa."

Sharon felt her heart turn over. It swelled with emotion. She dropped her gaze and continued laying out their lunch. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I know that was terrible of me." She drew a breath and let it out slowly. When Sharon looked up again, she shrugged. "The more we think that this world is changing, the more it seems to be staying the same. Rusty is my son, of course I love him. I love everything about him, and Gus is a very nice young man. I want them both to be happy, but…" She worried about him too. She worried about those who did not feel as she did. "This world is filled with hate," she said gently, "I won't be able to always be there for him, but I can protect him where I am able."

"People are morons." Andy walked around the table and turned her toward him. His hands settled against her shoulders and moved slowly down her arms to loosely circle her wrists. Andy pulled her closer and let his arms slide loosely around her waist. "This world is filled with idiots and dirtbags. All we can do is try to ignore them. You can't fix stupid." His head dipped. His lips were soft against hers. "I'm not stupid, Sharon."

"No." She laid her hands against his chest. She moved them beneath his jacket to rest against the soft material of his royal blue polo shirt. "But I might be. I am sorry."

"Don't be," he told her. "Don't ever be sorry for taking care of your kid." Andy sighed. "Ya know, you would think being a college baseball coach I wouldn't see it, but a lot of kids who come through my program, their parents couldn't give a shit. You're not one of those. That's a good thing in my book."

Her lips curved into a smile. Sharon rose onto the balls of her feet to press a kiss to his lips. "Where did you come from?" She asked him. Sharon kept trying to tell herself that he was just a man, that he had flaws, he wasn't perfect; the more she kept expecting him to disappoint her, the more he did not.

"Down the street." Andy grinned down at her. "I was dropping off my dry cleaning. The only parking spot on the street took me right past your store."

"Location, location, location." Her fingers curled into his shirt and she drew him closer.

He could get lost in her forever, he thought. Andy was tempted to do just that, but he figured the kid would only be gone for about an hour. She couldn't leave the store closed indefinitely, and this was not why he had dropped by. It was with some reluctance that his arms dropped away from her. He waved a hand at the table. "Come on, let's eat."

It was the middle of a busy day for both of them. Sharon let him maneuver her into a seat. When he joined her, she lifted the lid off of the takeout container that he brought. Spinach and lobster ravioli. He had remembered. They had only discussed favorite dishes once, and in passing. Sharon filed it away as one more thing to like about him as she reached for a package of plastic cutlery and opened it. "I noticed that your team won again last night," she commented, in an effort to tear her mind away from things that she would rather be doing with him.

"First time we've beat Culver in three years." Andy flashed a grin at her. "Must be our new good luck charm." They had been on a winning streak since Sharon had seen them play.

"Or their All American League pitcher finally graduated and moved up to the university level." She gave him a knowing look and a small smirk.

"Or that." Andy pointed his fork at her. "You did your homework." He looked impressed. "So tell me something, who are we playing tomorrow night, and should I be worried?"

The corners of her mouth twitched toward a grin. "Tomorrow night you're in Pasadena, but you shouldn't be worried. They have a good catcher, but the rest of their team is young. Their coach was playing his stars. He wasn't rotating his team. Now his stars have graduated and it's a rebuilding year."

"Not bad." Andy nodded slowly. "I'm a little worried that you're turning into a stalker, but…" He laughed when she balled up a napkin and tossed it at him. She was methodical in everything that she did, that was something that he was learning about her. "Tell me about this Gus kid. Do you really like him?" Andy narrowed his eyes at her. "Or are you one of _those mothers_?"

"I am going to pretend that I do not know who or what _those mothers_ are, and forget that you compared me to them." She lifted her chin into the air. Her eyes were sparkling though. "I like him. He's a good kid. I was worried at first. Gus showed up here a couple of years ago. He was looking for his sisters. They ran away from home while he was overseas in Afghanistan. Incidentally, Gus joined the Army to run away from home. It seems that his mother met a man that wasn't very nice. He was abusive toward all of them. Gus took the first escape that he could find. When he got out of the Army he found out that the situation at home had gotten even worse and his sisters were nowhere to be found. They were only fifteen and twelve. His mother was no help in finding them." Sharon smiled sadly. "She was too far gone into the abuse and while I am sure that she could still be saved, Gus chose to concentrate on his sisters. It turns out that while he was home he found his stepfather beating his mother. When he tried to intervene, the two of them got into a physical scuffle. His mother called the police, but when they arrived, she pressed charges against her son and not her abuser. Gus will have to carry that assault charge for the rest of his life."

Andy shook his head and swore quietly. There were some pretty screwed up people in the world. He couldn't imagine anyone allowing their kid to go through that. What she had told him of Rusty's biological mother, however, made Gus's story sound very similar. "What happened? How did he end up here?"

"Gus followed a tip that brought him to Los Angeles. He was checking everywhere that he thought his sisters might have gone or where they might have been seen. Mariana and Paloma both loved to read, and one of the locations he was told they could be found was an arcade around the corner. Unfortunately neither Rusty nor I had ever seen either of them. As it happened, Rusty has a friend that he thought could help. When Rusty first came to live with me, I insisted that he go to school. He was very behind the rest of his classmates. Hiring a tutor wasn't a simple matter because Rusty does not trust many people, or at least he did not at that time. I made some calls and worked with social services. Rusty's social worker put me in contact with an outreach program for youths in Rusty's situation. The young man that I hired works for the LAPD as a civilian contractor. He films crime scenes." Sharon exhaled quietly and fought the urge to shudder. She could not imagine a more horrific job. "Buzz was very integral in getting Rusty through that first school year. We kept him on for the rest of Rusty's high school career and they became friends. Actually, we consider him a member of the family." She waved a hand through the air. "In any event, Rusty called Buzz and put him in contact with Gus. It took several weeks, but we eventually learned that the elder of the two girls, Mariana, had been killed the previous summer. Paloma was in foster care. That family has since adopted her. Gus didn't have anywhere else to go, and since he and Rusty had become friends, he stayed in Los Angeles."

"Jesus." Andy sat back in his chair. He ran a hand over his face. What the hell kind of lives had these kids had? He could not imagine the hell that Gus had lived through. He had run from his family, right into a war zone, and when he came home, it was to a situation far worse than anyone could imagine. "So he's been here ever since?"

"Originally," Sharon continued, "it was only going to be through the trial. The LAPD was able to locate the man who killed his sister, before Gus even came here looking for her. One thing sort of lead to another, and…" She shrugged. "He and Rusty have a sort of… tumultuous relationship. Gus is a very nice boy. He's very sweet, and sometimes I wonder that he puts up with a lot more from my son than he should." She smiled brightly. "In other words, I will protect Rusty until my dying breath, but I am not blind to his faults either. Rusty and Gus break up and they get back together. They date other people, but somehow they always end up back where they started. I am not entirely convinced that it is a good thing, but…" She shrugged. "I really like Gus. He has been through a lot. He is older than Rusty and there was a time when I worried about that. Rusty seems drawn to older men, and I think that has a lot to do with his past, but Gus is so much like him in so many ways. I think that he is a calming influence." Sharon sighed. "At least until my son begins being the selfish person that he can be at times and Gus has enough…" She rolled her eyes. "Young love, what can we do? Even when they are not officially together, Gus is still a fixture. They are friends too, so even when they are not dating…"

She trailed off in a way that made Andy laugh. "They're always together, even when they're not?" He shook his head. "Kids today. You know, when we were that age, we were already married."

"Hm." Sharon's lips pursed. "We learn from our parents' mistakes?" She sighed again. "That must be why both of my elder children are still single. I was married to Jack for far longer than I should have been. As far as I am aware, while they date, neither of them has ever had a truly serious relationship. In some ways, Rusty is way ahead of them. Dating frightens him, he does not trust easily and he is not very good at opening himself to others, but he is very passionate. As much as I worry for him, it also does my heart good to see him being a normal twenty-year-old boy. He's flirting, enjoying his crushes, and trying to understand what his heart really wants. Ricky and Emily on the other hand…" Sharon just rolled her eyes. Her elder children were following their careers and allowing romance to happen when it was convenient to them.

"Would you be so eager if they had already made you a grandmother?" Andy shook his head at her. "Take it from me, once you cross that threshold, there is no going back." He loved those boys, and he was wondering when Nicole and her husband would give him another child to spoil and enjoy, but his life had changed. Things had shifted for him. He didn't look at the world in quite the same way that he used to. He had slowed down a little. Maybe he owed the fact that he was in a place to pursue one woman, and one that happened to be closer to his own age, to that fact. Andy didn't know. He just knew that it was a milestone and one that he was glad to have reached.

Sharon hummed thoughtfully. "You know something, I am really not sure yet. I think that I have a few years before I have to worry about it from any of them. Sometimes I wish that one of them would get on with it. I want to enjoy the grandchildren while I am still young enough to do so, but at the same time… I just want them to be happy, all three of them. Whatever it is that brings them joy, that is what I want for my kids. That is all that I have ever wanted." Sharon gave him a simple half shrug. "I have three rules. Be safe, be kind, and be happy."

"Sounds like your kids are pretty damned lucky to have you," Andy told her. "When we have to think about what Rusty and Gus went through. I look at some of my boys, sometimes, and it makes me wonder what kind of bullshit world we live in. More of the parents out there should be like you. I've got dads that give their boys hell for not playing a perfect game, moms that throw themselves at me in exchange for more playing time for their kids," Andy shuddered at the thought. "There are parents willing to pay their kids ways onto better teams, or back onto the team if they get cut. What are they teaching these kids?" He sighed. "I had a boy a few years ago, his dad beat the hell out of him because we lost. Kid didn't do a damned thing wrong. Good player, outfield, he caught everything that was sent his way. Hit his relay man every single time. His dad was just a piece of shit. Like I said, this world is full of morons. People don't know how lucky they've got it." He had worked damned hard to be the kind of dad that he thought his kids deserved, he was still working at it. There were things he could never take back and some regrets that even time couldn't heal, but he kept trying. It made him want the beat the shit out of people who took their kids for granted and hurt them for the hell of it.

Sharon was silent for a moment. She pushed her ravioli around with her fork. When she did look up at him it was to reach across the table and lay her hand over his. "Mine may not be the only lucky ones." She could not recall the last time that her ex-husband had even called their children, much less put forth any effort to see them. The last that she had heard Jack was in Reno. Sharon didn't keep up with him, that was no longer her job, but she ached for Ricky and Emily and the hole that his absence created in their lives. Sharon tried to fill it as best she could, but she knew that she would never be able to replace or repair that rift.

Andy looked away from her. Sometimes he wondered if he would disappoint her if she got to know him just a little better. He wasn't hiding anything, but he was used to people finding him wanting. It was why he had spent so many years just casually dating women a lot younger than he was. He hadn't wanted to a take a chance before. Things had changed, though. He finally recognized that he wasn't getting any younger and he didn't want to spend the rest of his life alone. He was good on his own, content, but he could have better. Maybe he was just starting to realize that he deserved better. There were still moments, though, like this one, where he wondered if someone like him was really what someone like Sharon needed in her life. She had been through hell, and so had the kid. The more he got to know her, the more he recognized that fact. He was also finding that it was becoming harder to stay away from her. That alone should have sent him running. He leaned across the table and tipped her face toward him. He caught her lips in a slow, gentle kiss. It had only been a week, though, and he wasn't young enough, or impetuous enough to think about anything beyond what he might be able to get her to do with him that weekend.

"How about a movie on Friday," he asked. He felt her lips curve against his. "There's an old drive in up in the hills. The weather is supposed to be good. We can see a show, maybe get some dinner…"

Sharon wondered yet again if they were spending entirely too much time together. Her nose nuzzled his cheek, though, and she felt herself nodding as she returned his kiss. "That sounds like it would be fun." She sighed softly against his mouth. "I have an author coming in on Saturday," she remembered. "I have to prep the store and I really shouldn't be out late." Sharon leaned back and gave him a small, sad smile. "I'm sorry." It was one of those rare weekends when she would have to work.

"Don't be." Andy thought about it for a minute. He had to head out to see his daughter on Saturday. It was one of his grandsons' birthday. He was going to be there all day. Andy shrugged. "So why don't we do it Saturday night instead? I've got plans during the day, but I can still pick you up around six? Will you be finished by then?"

"Yes." She actually thought she might be finished much sooner than that. She would have time enough to go home, change, and relax before he would pick her up. "I will look forward to it."

"Good." He kissed her again before he leaned back. "Six o'clock. Should I pick you up here or at home?"

"At home." Sharon leaned back in her seat to smile at him. She looked at her watch and wrinkled her nose. "Right now, I am going to have to call this to a close. I need to reopen the store and Rusty should be back soon."

Andy looked at the time. "Yeah, I should get back to school." He had about forty-five minutes before the afternoon practice would start. He stood up and began gathering what remained of their lunch. "You know, next time, maybe Rusty will feel like joining us. He doesn't have to run out when I'm around."

"Yes he does." Sharon laughed. She helped him clean up. "He's a boy. He doesn't want to think about what we are doing or _may_ be doing when he isn't around. Bless him, but I just cannot find fault in it. It's normal. I want Rusty to be as normal as he can be."

"Well, he's not here now." Andy caught her around the waist and pulled her in to him. His lips found hers and he took his time in exploring the depths of her mouth. He couldn't get enough of her. If she were anyone else he would have talked her in to bed before the end of their first date, but Sharon wasn't just anyone. He was enjoying this little dance of theirs. Andy didn't think that he had this much fun dating since before he married his ex. He had forgotten what it could feel like to meet someone that he really wanted to get to know. The anticipation and the buildup, the way every moment seemed to be not enough and the space in between could not move fast enough. As much as he wanted her, he didn't want to rush this. He didn't want to spoil the fun they were having for the sake of what they might find together later. He had learned to appreciate the journey, rather than the destination.

Later, after he left the store and when he was stuck in traffic on his way back to school, Andy reflected on the fact that being late was going to be worth it. He had spent a good twenty minutes making out with Sharon in her stock room. It was twenty minutes that they hadn't really had to spare, but they had done it anyway. He didn't regret it, and he didn't think that she did either. He would take an extra twenty minutes with her over being on time any day. It was worth it, and so was she.

 **-TBC-**


	4. Chapter 4

**The Bookmine**

 **By Kadi**

 **Rated K+**

 **Disclaimer:** This is not my sandbox, but I do love playing in it!

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

Sharon would like to say that she didn't know how she had come to this moment, but that wasn't true. She knew exactly the point at which she allowed herself to be swayed. Now that she had arrived at it, she was kicking herself. She knew better than to listen to those two. Every time that it happened Sharon ended up regretting it in one way or another. She always knew better, and she always promised herself that she would not let them influence her. It was nice in theory but it never worked very well. When it came to Gavin and Julio there was just no arguing with either of them. She had never met anyone more stubborn than the two of them, especially when they were teaming up against her.

The problem always lay in how they did it. Julio was the quiet one, always so polite and respectful. It was a front. He was devious and terrible and knew exactly how to get behind her defenses. He usually did it while she was occupied with arguing with Gavin. Her loud and boisterous friend would exaggerate everything; he would exasperate her to the point of near desperation, and then Julio would sneak in with some quiet little pearl of wisdom that would tie the entire thing up into a nice little package that she would have to deal with.

That was precisely how she came to be standing on her back deck on a Saturday evening. She was watching the storm that was building out over the pacific. The sun had set more than an hour before. It back lit the building clouds in hues of scarlet and purple and set off the glowing flashes of lightening. Sharon drew a breath and let it out slowly. The breeze lifted her hair. She could smell the hint of rain that it brought inland. It was a cool evening, but the fire pit behind her provided enough warmth to keep away the chill. The fire had burned down a bit, there were only small flames and glowing embers left. Beyond it, a table was set for dinner. Candles that should have been lit almost two hours ago were still waiting.

Sharon didn't know what had gone wrong, except that she had listened to Gavin and Julio. Had she misread everything? In the weeks since she began dating Andy she thought that she had a good handle on their relationship and where it was going. She believed that she could read him well. As they got to know each other better, Sharon allowed herself to open up more. She allowed herself to feel more and to think beyond their immediate circumstances. When she closed her eyes she could see herself with him, becoming closer, spending more time together. What she had not known was how to bridge the gap between their slow dance and the closer relationship that she wanted. Andy seemed to be respecting some unspoken boundary between them. It was something that she appreciated, more than she could express in words. She was ready to move forward now, and she was certain that he wanted more too… didn't he?

That was the question that she was asking herself now. A week ago she was sure that she knew the answer, but that was before she had brunch with Gavin and Julio.

The three of them got together one day out of the month. Sharon juggled the schedule at the store so that Rusty could open for her and she would work the afternoon shift. The two of them would join her at the townhouse and they would enjoy a simple brunch and mimosas while going over the accounts and contracts for the store.

Sharon had known Julio even longer than she had known Gavin. She had encountered him when he was just a young man, not much younger than Rusty was now. It was during a time when she and Jack had still been happy together, when they had dreams and shared goals. They had opened a small law practice together. Jack had lofty plans for himself. He wanted to be a big time criminal attorney. Sharon encountered enough of that through him to look to other ways of serving the law. She wanted to fight for people, to help them, not listen to their lies and take their money and facilitate their wrongdoing. Every person was entitled to a fair trial, guilty or not, and she believed that; it was a right that she would always defend, but where did they, as attorneys, draw the line between due process and putting criminals back onto the street? If she could not answer that question, then Sharon knew that she was not meant to practice Criminal Law, and so she had not.

She found her calling in protecting the rights of others. Sharon dove into civil rights cases, in protecting people from discrimination and hate crimes, and lobbying for legislature that would help to make each man, woman, and child truly equal and safe. Jack called her an idealist, a dreamer, but for a time he had fully supported her dreams. They had supported one another.

It was while Sharon was on maternity leave following Ricky's birth that she met Julio. He had been arrested and charged with criminal mischief and assault. It was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Julio had grown up in a neighborhood that was filled with gang violence and activity. Joining the gangs was a way of life for most of the young men that he had grown up with. His older brother was one of those young men, but Julio wanted nothing to do with the gangs. He hated them. He despised everything that they were and all that they were doing to his neighborhood. His mother worried every day, and this was not the life that his father was working so hard to provide for them.

Julio watched his mother clean other people's houses, and his father come home, tired, with sore hands from working on cars. All that they asked of their children was that they get a good education, that they get good jobs, and that they not join the gangs. His brother hadn't listened, and so Julio watched his mother cry and pray and his father worry. When he had gotten wind that something was going to go down, Julio had gone to try and change his brother's mind. It was not too late. He could still get out.

He got there too late, but because Julio was there, and because of the color of his skin, he was arrested too. It had not mattered that everyone's statement was the same, that he was not involved. He was still being charged. Jack had gotten the case as a court appointed attorney. He was trying to talk Julio into take a plea bargain. He had never been in trouble before, and he was sure that he could get him probation and time served in county jail.

Sharon had dropped by to bring Jack lunch on her way to pick Emily up from pre-school. Normally she would not have paid much attention to one of her husband's cases, but Julio's mother had looked at her with such pleading, such sorrow. It might have been the hormones, as Jack had said later, but she had bounced the newborn in her arms and found herself asking a few questions. He could have been lying, but Julio had met her gaze, and it never wavered as he spoke to her. He was earnest and respectful. Sharon had taken the case from Jack then and there. He had nothing to lose or gain from it, so he had allowed her to have it. Jack believed that she was fighting a losing battle. He was only working the court appointed list to make contacts in the law enforcement community, and a loss wouldn't look good on his record. Sharon hadn't thought beyond his easy acquiescence at the time. It wasn't until years later, as their marriage began to crumble, that his reasons stood out in such startling clarity.

At the time, Sharon was tired and sleep-deprived. She was taking care of a newborn and a toddler, and diving into a case that simply could not wait. Thankfully her new clients were understanding of her plight, and did not mind meeting at the house, rather than the office. Sharon was not ready yet for Ricky to be in daycare, and as a mother of five, Julio's mother had been more than happy to accommodate.

She spent hours going over the arrest reports from the night that he was picked up. She spoke to witnesses and co-defendants. Sharon spoke to Julio's brother and the other gang members. Their stories never changed. Julio was not involved. He was not in the gang. Violent lowlives though many of them might be, they had a respect for family. There was no evidence to incriminate the young man, and nothing to go on but the fact that he was present.

She tried the case and won. Julio's family was not interested in filing a lawsuit against the LAPD, but Sharon had filed a formal complaint on his behalf. During those many months that she was defending him, she got to know the quiet young man. He was stubborn, and he had a bit of a temper, but he was also very intelligent. There was so much more that he could do, if he just applied himself. Sharon had talked him into going to college, furthering his education. He had a way with numbers and facts, and the logical order of things. It had not surprised her, years later, to learn that he ended up with a business degree.

When Sharon had filed for legal separation from Jack it had meant untangling their finances. She found Julio working at the accounting firm that Gavin had referred her to. He had been doing her books and taxes ever since.

Gavin Baker was still with the City Attorney's office when they met. They frequented some of the same professional and social circles and became friends. They had joined the same law practice a few years later. Gavin was boisterous, loud, and sarcastic. He was also intelligent and honorable, and a better friend she had never had. When she separated from Jack, he had found her a divorce attorney that had nailed her ex-husband's ass to the wall. Julio had offered to take his brothers and beat the crap out of him, but Gavin had helped her punish Jack in the way that mattered most. They had gone after his ego and his wallet by protecting Sharon financially and severing his cash flow.

In return for all of their many years of friendship she got to listen to the pair of them weigh in on her romantic life, or quite often lack thereof. Now that she was dating Andy, they had quite a lot to say on the matter. Or rather, Gavin did. Julio simply smirked at her and agreed in that way of his.

"There are times when I simply cannot believe that I know you." Gavin topped off his mimosa with champagne before walking back over to take a seat at the table. They had the patio doors open. Light and the clean ocean breeze were filtering in to the room. On the table there was a platter of fresh pastries and fruit, along with their computers, Sharon's ledgers, and a few other documents. "You've been dating the man for more than a month, how can you not know what the inside of his bedroom looks like?"

"The same way that he doesn't know what the inside of hers looks like." Julio spoke quietly and without looking up from the accounts that he was balancing for her.

"I thought you had dinner at his place last week?" Gavin peered over the dark rims of his glasses at her. "The man cooked you dinner," he pointed out with emphasis. "At least tell me that he has a comfortable sofa?"

Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yes, it was very nice, but not in the way that you are insinuating. Do we have to discuss this?" She reached for a muffin and tore it in half. "I am not going to discuss my sex life with you, Gavin."

"What sex life?" He shook his head at her. "Darling, there comes a point when it's just time to dust off the cob webs and get to work again. The man cooked you dinner!"

"Yes, he did!" Sharon dropped the muffin onto her plate with a sigh. "It was romantic and sweet, and I had a very nice time. What does the fact that he made me dinner have to do with anything? We have eaten together a few dozen times now. Gavin, drop it." She gave him a warning look. Her cheeks were beginning to heat. "I do not want to discuss it."

"Is he gay?" Gavin didn't heed her warning. Beside him he heard Julio snort. "Well… maybe I need to meet him. If he isn't interested in Sharon, perhaps he will be more interested in me. Sharon," He leaned forward and pinned her with a look. "He invited you into his home. At night. You weren't supposed to leave before breakfast."

"Not everything is about sex, Gavin." She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. "I am not going to allow you to ruin what was a very nice evening by cheapening it." Yes, they had dinner. Yes, they had danced in his living room. They had exchanged a few heated kisses on his sofa, and she felt perfectly comfortable lying in his arms, but it had not gone beyond that. She was absolutely certain that he had wanted more than that, but she wasn't going to discuss _that_ with Gavin either.

"Maybe he's broken." Gavin rested his chin in his hand. He looked at Julio. "You know, men of a certain age…" He trailed off with a meaningful look.

Julio heard Sharon groan. He smirked at the lawyer. "Well, I guess you would know," he fired back. "How old are you again?" Just the other side of fifty, as Julio recalled, while he was still sliding down that side of forty-five.

Gavin's eyes narrowed. "This is not about me. This is about Sharon," he reminded him. "She is going stale and her new man friend doesn't want to play."

"I am pretty sure he wants to play," Julio pointed out. "He made her dinner." He cast a look at Sharon. "It is a thing," he said. "What did you do to him?"

"Wha…" Her jaw dropped open. She stared at the pair of them. "Why is this _my_ fault?" She stood up and walked away from them. She was going to need much more to drink if this was going to continue. Sharon made herself another mimosa and turned to face her two friends. "First of all, I have not done anything to him. At least that he has not asked for," she added. Her cheeks were a deep shade of pink by this point, but it needed to be said. "Secondly, my relationship is really none—"

"Of our business. Blah, blah, blah," Gavin waved a hand at her. "Yes, yes, duly noted, Counselor. Overruled. We are not interested in your excuses. We are interested in the fact that we…" he glanced at Julio and shrugged, "okay, _I_ ," he continued, "have been listening to you go on and on about this stud muffin for weeks now and nothing has come of it." He sighed. Gavin knew exactly what her problem was. "Sharon, there is nothing wrong with having a little fun. Not everything has to happen in perfect order."

He knew her too well. Sharon averted her gaze from his knowing look. She shifted where she stood. She could feel his eyes on her, penetrating all of her excuses and defenses. She groaned as she walked back to the table. She dropped into a seat and made a face at him. "He is an alcoholic," she said plainly. She had been down that road before.

"Who hasn't touched a drop in almost twenty years," Gavin pointed out. She told him that herself, and he looked the guy up. He had to dig deep just to find the DWI that had ended the guy's career. He had an otherwise clean record. There were a few speeding tickets, but who the hell didn't have those? He had a fairly decent reputation, considering he was more or less low profile as a college baseball coach. If he was still boozing, it would be obvious.

"He's divorced," Sharon said.

"So are you," Gavin reminded her with a smile. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs. He lifted his glass to his lips and tilted his head, waiting. They were going through her list of cons now. It was his job to shoot them all down, and that was something that he could do quite easily.

"He coaches baseball," Sharon rested her chin in her hand. Her lips turned down into a small pout. "At a community college."

"You love baseball," this time it was Julio that spoke up. "What is wrong with community college?" He had gone to one. He had earned a two-year degree from a community college, going at night and working during the day before transferring to a university to earn his bachelor's degree.

"When are you seeing him again?" Gavin arched a brow at her. That would be the deciding factor.

"This weekend. He is taking me to dinner and to see a movie," She shrugged. "Why? Our plans are not exactly spectacular, but I am sure that we will have a good time…"

Gavin turned his head slowly. He gave Julio a knowing look. The younger man was staring back at him. "He made her dinner. Nothing happened, and he wants to see her again."

"He likes her." Julio tapped the end of his red, ballpoint pen against the edge of the ledger. He was the one to turn to Sharon. "Change of plans. You are making him dinner here."

"I will make sure that Rusty has other places to be," Gavin told her. He would get rid of the boy for the entire weekend. He knew exactly how to bribe the little darling. "Your job will be to get that man here and then do exactly as I say…"

What had followed was a conversation filled with more champagne than orange juice and Gavin's opinions on the perfect seduction routine. Julio had left her alone with him before it became too embarrassing. He was meeting his wife Maria to shop for their eldest daughter's birthday. They were thinking of getting her a car, something that Julio was not ready for yet, but she was a good kid with good grades. Sharon had laughed as he left. She had watched him hope for a son every time that his wife was pregnant. They had three girls, and he spoiled them all. She would forgive him for abandoning her with Gavin to dote on his little girl.

For the rest, Sharon had only herself to blame.

Andy had seemed perfectly amenable to the change of plans. He was curious, but he hadn't really questioned her. She had planned a simple dinner. There was steamed rice and glazed vegetables. The lights in the townhouse were turned low. Music still played quietly. Her hair fell in carefully arranged curls and waves around her face and shoulders. The short shirt-dress was Gavin's idea too. It was a deep shade of blue, with small silver snaps that held it closed in the front. It fell to just a few inches above her knees and she had left the last two buttons undone.

Dinner was long since cold and she couldn't count the number of times that her playlist had shuffled through the same selection of songs. What Andy might have thought of any of it, she didn't know. She hadn't seen him. She expected him by six. By six-thirty she began checking her phone. At seven she was pacing and trying to call him. Now at eight she was wondering what she had done to earn being stood up so callously.

It was the complete inconsideration of it all that plucked at her temper. Sharon did not have much of one, but when it was riled, it was hard to close down again. She wanted answers and she wanted to have her say. Did it really all boil down to sex? She had not fulfilled certain expectations in a timely matter and now the matter was closed and he was finished with her? She really expected better of him than that. She expected better of herself than to fall for a man who was more interested in her body than the time that they spent together.

What fueled her anger the most was the pain that she felt. Once again she allowed herself to fall for a man that had only disappointed her. That was the worst part of it. She was falling for him. She wanted to be with him, and she wanted to explore the emotions that were hanging between them. What she had not expected was for all of it to blind her to the fact that it was, apparently, one-sided. He wanted her body. She wanted his heart.

Sharon turned away from the storm that was building on the horizon. She extinguished the fire pit and went in search of her purse and keys. If Andy Flynn thought that he could discard her so easily, he had another thing coming. He was going to look her in the eye and tell her himself that he had enough and was moving on. She was not a woman who would crawl or plead, but she felt that she at least deserved the courtesy of a proper conversation.

She rehearsed everything that she planned to say to him as she made the drive to his house. Andy lived across town, near Echo Park, and it gave her plenty of time to make a mental list of every thing that she was going to tell him. Sharon managed to work herself into quite a fit of ire by the time that she arrived. Part of her was even surprised to find Andy's truck parked in the driveway in front of his small bungalow. Lights were glowing in the windows. He was definitely home.

Sharon took only her keys and her phone with her as she made her way up the short walkway. He had not returned any of her calls, nor did he answer his door. Sharon knocked for five minutes before she decided to try the knob. She found it locked and decided to go around back. The sliding patio door would be unlocked if he was home. Sharon knocked on it as she slid it open. "Andy?" Her stomach tightened into knots when he still didn't answer. Her ire had started to fade into worry. Was she right? Did she know him better than her previous fit of temper implied? Had there been something to keep him from joining her?

Sharon entered the small bungalow; her eyes swept the interior as she moved past the kitchen. Andy's keys and wallet were still on the bar that separated the kitchen from the other rooms. Her stomach tightened further at the sight of the wilted bouquet of flowers that was lying beside them. She found the living room in complete disarray. The house had been tidy when she was there the previous weekend. What she found went beyond clutter. The wide-screen television was knocked over. The coffee table and a lamp were both broken. " _Andy_?"

"Sharon."

The sound of her name was a relief, but it was spoken quietly. The normal, rumbling cadence of his voice was thick, filled with pain. Sharon turned where she stood. She gasped when she saw him. Her hands flew to her mouth. He was seated on the floor, leaning against the opening to the hallway, with an arm wrapped around his middle. There was a cut above his left eye, and it looked as if he had tried to stop the bleeding with the sleeve of his pale blue, button down. His lip was swollen and cut and his jaw was bruised. His head was tipped back against the wall, and the dark eyes that stared back at her were glazed and pained.

For just a moment she couldn't move. When he winced and his eyes closed, Sharon pushed away from her spot and maneuvered through the rubble of his living room. She knelt beside him. "What happened?" She laid a hand against the side of his neck and carefully turned his face toward her. When he grimaced, she hissed.

"Was gonna call you," he said. "Phone is broken. Other one is busted. Didn't make it so far." His cell phone was laying in pieces, and the landline hadn't faired much better. There was another phone in his bedroom, but this was as far as he had gotten before Andy had slumped against the wall and slid to the floor.

Sharon shook her head at him. She couldn't believe that she had been brooding and angry while he was hurt. "Shh…" She pulled her own cell phone out and began to dial. Her thumb stroked gently against the uninjured side of his face. "It's okay," she assured him. "I am going to call for help. Andy, who did this?"

"Pissed off the wrong guy," he grimaced again. "Bobby's dad didn't like how he played the other night. I didn't like how he spoke to him. He showed up here to teach me a lesson. He's a miserable drunk. I guess that's ironic, isn't it?"

"No." Sharon held the phone to her ear while it dialed. "No, Andy, it is not ironic at all. It is violent and terrible, drinking does not give him the right to beat the crap out of someone that he does not agree with, and being an alcoholic does not mean that you deserve to be on the receiving end." Her voice was thick and shaking with emotion. Sharon shook her head at him. "This is the last thing that you deserve for taking care of your players."

He wasn't sure that he agreed with her. Andy tipped his head back again and forced his eyes to stay open. Goddamn but he was hurting all over. He wanted to pass out, but at the moment he wanted to look at her more. He laid a hand against her knee. She was relaying his address and asking the dispatcher on the other end of the line for help, but all he could think about was the way her hair bounced and swayed when her head turned. His eyes moved to the dress, and the way it hugged her form. "Damn," he muttered. "You look good tonight." He sighed as his eyes closed again. "It was going to be a really good night."

Sharon hummed thoughtfully as she placed the phone on the floor beside her. Her fingers combed through his hair. An ambulance would reach them soon. "Yes it was," she told him. "We will do it another night." She leaned forward and kissed the top of his head, since it was the least injured place above his shoulders. "I promise."

He hadn't stood her up. The way he looked at her, so much regret and pain in his gaze, Sharon knew that she was done. It was over. She had fallen completely and there was no going back. She wanted his heart, and despite all of her better reasoning and logic, he already had hers.

Sharon only left him long enough to unlock the front door for the paramedics and police. While Andy was taken care of, she relayed the situation as he had told her to the responding officers. They questioned him in he ambulance before he was taken away. Sharon followed in her own vehicle. With his phone broken she had no way of calling anyone else that was close to him. They hadn't known each other long enough for her to have contact with his family. Sharon simply had to wait it out.

Four hours after arriving at the hospital, Andy was released into her care. He had a mild concussion and a few bruised ribs, but he was otherwise okay. Sharon took him home with her. His house was still a mess and the emergency room doctor had recommended that he be watched, at least for the next twenty-four hours.

If he hadn't already guessed from the way that she was dressed, the setup in her townhouse was enough to tell Andy exactly what that evening would have entailed. He swore quietly as he looked around the first floor. Soft lighting, romantic dinner, and a dress that was enticing his imagination; there was no doubt what she had planned for them. Now he was beaten up, bruised up, and Sharon was taking him to bed, but not in a way that either of them had intended.

Sharon helped him up the stairs. He watched her as she moved around the bedroom. She laid out clean clothes for him, from the bag that they had stopped at his place to grab after leaving the hospital. When she stopped in front of him and her hands moved to his shirt, Andy shook his head at her. "Sharon, stop." He didn't need to be her patient. "I can manage."

Her brows lifted. A smile tugged at her lips. His brows had drawn together stubbornly. "Andy, you can barely move. It really is not a bother." She found an uninjured corner of his mouth and pressed a soft kiss there. "Now stop being a child." She pushed his hands out of her way and tugged at his shirt again.

Andy sighed. "This was not how this night was supposed to go."

"No it was not." She agreed with a smile. "This is what we have now. Andy, quite obviously, what was intended was very different, but the reasoning was the same. You are here because I care very deeply for you. Now stop talking, and take off your clothes."

"How can I argue with that?" He rolled his eyes at her. Andy pushed a hand into her hair and drew her toward him. His lip stung like a son of a bitch, but he kissed her before letting his arms drop so that they were no longer in her way. He winced as she helped him off with the shirt. The local that the docs in the ER had given him was wearing off. He couldn't take anything stronger because of his history, and the milder painkillers were not going to get it done, not completely.

She helped him into the shower, and then she shocked him. She pulled at the snaps of her dress and peeled out of it. She tossed her clothes aside and stepped into the shower with him. In that moment she was as exposed and vulnerable as he was. His side and shoulders, and arms were bruised from the fight. Her hands were gentle, and her lips soft as they touched his shoulder, and then a particularly nasty bruise just below his collarbone. She lathered a softly scented soap and smoothed away the antiseptic smell of the hospital and some of the stiffness in his muscles.

He thought he was a goner before. Now, with Sharon pressed against him, and his arm curled loosely around her waist, steam surrounding them and the hot spray of her shower beating down on both of their bodies, he knew that he was a done for. He turned his face into her neck and heard her sigh his name. Damned if he would ever be able to let go of her now.

 **-TBC-**


	5. Chapter 5

**The Bookmine**

 **By Kadi**

 **Rated K+**

 **Disclaimer:** This is not my sandbox, but I do love playing in it!

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

Arriving home to find Andy hanging out at the house was something that Rusty had gotten used to while the man was staying with them. His mother's boyfriend had spent a week as their guest after he was beaten up by one of his players' dads. It was an awkward situation at first, Rusty wasn't really all that used to having anyone around on such a regular basis. Even when his siblings visited it was only for a few days to a week, and they were not more or less confined to the house.

Andy's doctor had not permitted him to drive during that time, and he wasn't allowed to work either. He protested being stuck at the house, but however stubborn he might be; Sharon was far more steadfast that he follow his doctor's orders. She wouldn't let him go home until he was well enough to be on his own again. That had taken a week, a very long week in Rusty's opinion, and probably Andy's too. Not that he thought the guy was really all that bad. It was odd seeing his mother with someone. By the end of that week, though, Rusty had decided that the situation wasn't terrible. The guy was sarcastic and funny, and Rusty began to see just how much he actually cared about his mother.

That did not mean that he wanted to _see_ their relationship taking place. That was never going to change. It was a pretty normal thing, which even his therapist agreed with. As long as Sharon was happy, Rusty was good with everything, but he did not want the visuals.

That had all taken place a few months before. Andy had gotten better and moved home. The guy who had beaten him up was in jail. The school semester was over, another reason that Andy was hanging out so often, Rusty figured. It was different for teachers; they actually got the summers off if they wanted. Students like him, the ones that wanted to graduate soon, they took classes and wondered why they were so insanely focused on their degrees. Rusty was only planning to take the one class, however. He intended to take the second half of the summer off. That was a thought that was far from his mind when he got home.

Rusty sighed as he dropped his bag on a chair in the living room. Andy was sitting on the sofa, remote in his hand, and a game playing on the wide screen television. "Do you ever do anything else?" Rusty jerked his head at the screen. "Baseball? Again?"

"Prospect tapes." Andy paused the playback and twisted on the sofa. "Well, DVDs I guess. Tapes are a thing of the past." He arched a brow at the kid. "I got a list of the kids that have already registered for fall, I'm checking out their game status. It gives me an idea of where or if I can use them next season." He was also waiting for Sharon. She was supposed to meet him an hour ago, but she was running late.

During the summer months the students who worked weekends at her store picked up more shifts during the week. The kid who was supposed to relieve her at noon was stuck in traffic. There had been an accident between his apartment and the store. Andy would have swung by the store to keep her company instead, but he was already driving down her street when she called him. Sharon insisted that he wait for her there. She didn't think that she would be long. Andy was beginning to think that he should pick up lunch and take it to her. According to news reports, the wreck was fairly intense. Traffic was backed up pretty bad.

"Uh huh." Rusty just shook his head. It didn't sound all that thrilling to him. "Where's Sharon?" As he spoke, he walked into the kitchen to get a bottle of water out of the fridge.

"Stuck at the store." Andy placed the remote on the coffee table and pulled himself up. He followed the kid to the kitchen, but leaned against the bar. "Jake got caught in traffic."

Rusty winced. He had heard about the pileup. He could have been caught in that mess. Instead he had gone the long way to get home. "Did you guys have a date? I can go and takeover at the store…" He actually had plans later, but Rusty didn't think cancelling them would be an issue.

"I was instructed to tell you that is not necessary." Andy grinned crookedly at the kid. "Sharon didn't think she would be stuck that long." He glanced at his watch. "I'm thinking about grabbing lunch and taking it to her if she's not here in half an hour. What are you up to today?"

"Studying." Rusty approached the bar. He stood on the opposite side and placed his water on it with a sigh. "Next time I decide to take a math class during the summer, remind me that's a terrible idea." It was twice the work. "I'm meeting Buzz at a coffee shop near his place later. We're going to go over some stuff I'm having trouble with." Rusty paused and tilted his head; a crooked grin tugged at his mouth. "Unless you understand the finer points of business trigonometry?"

Andy snorted a laugh and pushed away from the bar. "You're on your own with that one kid. Letters do not belong in math."

"Yeah?" Rusty continued to grin. "Tell me again how geometry and physics play no part in your job?" He picked up his water and followed the older man back into the living room.

"Shut up," Andy grunted. The very idea of it was enough to make his head hurt. "Smart ass."

Rusty laughed. "I'm just hoping I can make it across town and back without my car dying on me." He sank into a chair with a sigh. "It's making a weird noise. I think the old thing might finally be on its last leg." Sharon had driven that car for years, and then she had given it to her older two kids. They had shared it until both of them had graduated and moved away. She had kept it around, for when they visited. Now it was his, and Rusty thought it might just be ready to give up.

"Yeah?" Andy walked over and leaned on the back of the couch, facing Rusty. He thought about it for a minute. "Come on." He straightened and walked toward the door. "Start it up, let me hear it."

"For real?" Rusty wrinkled his nose. "We don't have to mess with it right now. I can just take it to the shop…" He rolled his eyes. "Although it was just there a month ago for new break pads. I'm kind of thinking they should have caught this."

"Keep thinking that kid and you'll get fleeced every time." Andy opened the door and motioned the kid over. "For real. Let's see if it's a dying cough or a minor fix. Depending on what the issue is, I might be able to help." It would give him something to do, and he really didn't mind helping the kid out.

"Great." Rusty pushed out of his chair and grabbed his keys. He led the way outside to where his car was parked in its usual place in the driveway. Rusty leaned inside and cranked the engine. It turned over no problem, and sounded just fine for a moment. Rusty sighed, it was going to be one of those times when he was sure that there was something wrong, but he couldn't prove it. Before he could open his mouth, however, the sound that he had been hearing started. There was a low whine coming from his engine, along with a rattle. The overall whirring sound of the car's motor deepened. He looked over at Andy with a shrug. "That's not good, right?"

"No, it's not." Andy waved a hand at the open car door. "Leave it on, pop the hood." He walked around to the front of the car and waited until he heard the familiar click of a hood releasing. After he secured the raised hood, Andy leaned over to take a look at the running engine. The sounds they were hearing became much louder. Andy did not see any obvious signs of trouble with the motor itself, so he took a look at the belts and filters. "You need a new idle pulley, kid." He pointed out the item that was wobbling as it spun. "It wouldn't hurt to replace some of those belts either." They weren't close to snapping, but they had seen better days. He tilted his head to one side and leaned a little closer. "Replacing the air filter will help with the rest of it. When is the last time you did that?"

"Uh." Rusty gave him a wide-eyed look. "We take it in for maintenance when we're supposed to. Don't they do that when they change the oil?"

"No." Andy chuckled quietly. He put the hood back down and let it close with a snap that was almost a slam. "Go ahead and turn it off. You can take it in," he explained, "and tell them exactly what to do. It won't take more than a couple of hours to fix." He watched the kid cringe at the thought. It was an expense, and one that Andy knew Sharon would have no problem taking care of herself… but he also knew that Rusty wanted to be independent. She had expressed to him once that Rusty insisted on paying for the car's needs while he used it, even if it was technically her vehicle. Andy glanced at his watch again. He pulled out his phone and took a look at that too. They hadn't heard from Sharon. She told him earlier that she would call when she was leaving the store. "Tell you what," he decided, "we can run over to an auto store I use, pick up the parts, and I can fix it for you."

Rusty gave him a wary, unconvinced look. " _You_ can fix it?" His brows drew together. "Um. Do you even know _how_ to do that?" His gaze swept over the man. So maybe he could play baseball and stuff, but what did he know about fixing cars? And really, from what he had seen of it, how hard was baseball really? It looked like a lot of standing around to Rusty.

"Yeah." Andy grinned crookedly. He shook his head at the kid. "I can fix it. Boggles the mind doesn't it? It might surprise you to know, Rusty, but this whole thing of dropping your car off at a repair shop isn't always convenient for people. Sometimes, you just have to figure out how to fix things yourself."

This time Rusty rolled his eyes. "I get that, but shouldn't we let professionals do the things that, you know, they are _trained_ to do?" He cocked his head at the older man and gave him a knowing look. "Would you have let me put the stitches in your head a while back?"

"That is hardly the same thing." Andy made a face at the little smart ass. He couldn't help it, he liked the kid. "Listen, if it makes you feel any better, I was trained to do this. My old man did this kind of thing. I've been doing it since I was big enough to see over the side of a car. I've fixed my own a time or two," he waved a hand at the truck that was parked on the curb in front of Sharon's townhouse. "Maybe," he said pointing at the kid, "one of these days, when you stop being such a weirdo about my relationship with your mother, you can come by my place and see the little gem I've got in my garage."

Rusty's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't fill me with warm and fuzzies. What is it?"

Andy pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He rocked back on his heels with a grin. "A '67 Dodge Charger. I inherited it from my dad. Some day, I might even let you touch it."

"Uh huh." Rusty's brows rose. "How does anything that old still exist?"

"I'm going to forget you said that." Andy jerked his head toward his truck. "So are we going to fix this thing or not? I mean, if you want to drop it at the shop go right ahead. Me, looks like I've got a free afternoon. What's it gonna be kid?"

Rusty thought about it for a moment. He considered what he had in savings and whether or not he felt more comfortable letting his mother take care of the situation, or relying on her boyfriend. Finally, with some reluctance, he nodded. It was a nice offer, and despite his hesitation, he appreciated it. "Okay," he said. "I guess, let's try it."

"Good." Andy did a half pivot and waved the kid toward his truck. "You go ahead, I'll lock up." He watched Rusty trudge toward his truck and shook his head. It was progress at least.

The trip to the auto store was another study in progress between the two men. Rusty really didn't have the first clue what they needed, beyond the basic essentials that he or Sharon kept on hand for their vehicles… like fix-a-flat. Andy was patient with him as they stood at the counter with the store tech and explained what was needed. Rusty's care was an older model, but that worked in their favor. The parts needed were pretty basic, and luckily, on hand.

Their outing also required a trip to Andy's house. They stopped by only long enough for him to pick up the tools that they would need, but Rusty learned that there was, indeed, a vehicle of some kind stored in Andy's garage. It was hidden beneath a protective cover, so he had no idea what it was, but the bulk and shape told him that it was probably the _really old_ car that Andy mentioned earlier. He thought about asking, but by the time that he decided to do it, Andy was striding out of the garage with a toolbox.

"Okay kid, let's go."

Rusty turned on his heel and followed. He really hoped that he wouldn't regret this. Also, he was wondering how it would go over if he started answering every time that he was called _kid_ with _old dude_. He made a mental note to just never do it when Sharon was around.

 **MCMCMCMCMC**

Sharon was a little surprised that Andy didn't answer when she called him upon leaving the store. It had been two hours since she had last spoken to him. At that time it was to tell him that it was taking longer for her to get a replacement in for the afternoon shift than she originally believed. Jake was still stuck in traffic and Sara, the other student that worked for her, was not available. Rusty had not answered his phone either. That was when Andy had told her that he and her son were hanging out, and if she needed him, he would send the kid over. Sharon was tempted to agree, but didn't. There were two reasons, she wasn't about to impose on Rusty's afternoon when he wasn't scheduled to work because she wanted to spend time with Andy, and at the same time, she was pleased that the two of them were getting along. Whatever the two of them were doing, since Andy had not elaborated, she wouldn't interrupt it. She felt that was a little more important than getting on with the rest of her day. Sharon told him that she would wait for Jake, and with any luck, she would see him soon.

While soon had taken much longer than she would have liked, life was often unpredictable. Sharon contemplated picking up dinner on her way home, but decided to wait until she spoke to the men in her life. What the two of them may or may not have gotten up to was anyone's guess. The last thing that Sharon expected, though, was to pull into her driveway and find the pair of them bent over beneath the open hood of Rusty's car.

They had backed the car into the garage. Sharon's lips pursed as she parked her own in the driveway and gathered her things before climbing out of the vehicle. Rusty noticed her immediately and offered a wave as she walked toward them. If Andy realized that she was present, he gave no indication. Sharon adjusted her purse on her shoulder and tilted her head at them. It was not that she was necessarily opposed to the situation that greeted her, but she was rather curious at how it had come to be.

She took a moment to stand there and survey the interior of her garage. There were dirty and greasy parts laid out on an old drop cloth on the concrete floor. Her brow arched as she let her gaze wonder to her son. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt, or rather, a shirt that used to be white. The front of it and his jeans were both smudged and dirty. Sharon moved closer, alongside the two men and stopped beside her son. Andy's arms were extended into the bowels of the car, muscles flexing as he worked. He appeared to be tightening something, and while he spared her a glance, his focus was on his work. He too wore only a white undershirt, and she noticed that it bore the stains of his labor. There was sweat glistening on his arms and brow and while she could admire the sight before her, she was still more interested in the cause for the occasion.

"What is all of this?" She finally asked.

"My car was making a weird noise." Rusty leaned his hip against the side of the vehicle and offered a sheepish shrug. "Andy said that he could fix it."

"It needed a new idle pulley and air filter." Andy gave one last twist of the wrench in his hand and leaned back. He laid the wrench on the edge of the car and reached for one of the old rags that he brought with him to wipe his hands on. He looked at Sharon finally. "I figured while I was at it, I could replace some of the belts. It's an easy fix," he added, before she could protest, which he could see her gearing up to do. "It only took a few hours and saved Rusty a trip to the shop." He glanced at the kid. "Start her up, let's see how she runs."

"I see." Sharon folded her arms across her chest. She surveyed the mess that they had made, minor though it was, and hummed quietly. She honestly didn't know what to think of the situation.

A grin tugged at the corner of Andy's mouth, but the sound of the engine cranking curtailed his response. He turned his attention back to the motor and tilted his head as he listened. His gaze trailed over the belts that he had replaced and he watched the pulley as it turned. When Rusty leaned back from inside the car, he nodded. The engine was purring now. "That is how it should sound, kid. Let's give it a run and make sure it handles right." As he spoke, he let the hood down.

"Ah…" Sharon pointed at their stained clothes. "Like that?" She couldn't imagine letting either of them into the cars, or even her house, until they had both been hosed down.

Andy flashed a grin at her. "That's generally the idea, yeah." He took a step forward. "If it isn't running right, I'll need to pop the hood again. What's the matter?" There was a devious glint in his eyes as he moved steadily closer. He watched her take a step back and his grin widened. "You're late. Don't I get a hello?"

She made a small noise and put her hand up to ward him off. It made contact with his chest. His t-shirt was damp, but not exactly soaked. "Do not," she warned. His hands were filthy and so was he.

He laughed as he held his arms out from his body. Andy leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. He wouldn't dream of smudging that pretty, pale blue, silk blouse. It was a favorite of his. "I'll be good," he promised.

"I doubt that." A small smile curved her lips. "So this is what the two of you have been doing together all afternoon?"

"Had to keep busy some how." Andy gave his hands another wipe on the rag and tossed it onto the drop cloth with the rest of the discarded rags and tools they had used.

"It wasn't bad," Rusty offered. "He actually knew what he was doing. I had doubts," he admitted. "Plus side, I almost know what goes where now."

He looked impressed, and for Rusty, that was a big deal. He was going to downplay it though. Sharon smiled at her son. "Then I suppose that it was a productive day. I really cannot argue with a learning experience." She looked around the garage again. "But you are going to clean this up," she made a circular motion with her finger, before giving both men a pointed look, "right?"

Andy rolled his eyes at her. Rusty was giving him an _I told you so_ look. "Yeah, when we get done, I will clean it all up." He walked around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. "Come on, Rusty. Let's take her for a spin."

Rusty made a face as he moved back to the driver's side. "Why are cars always called _her_?"

Both of Sharon's brows rose. She tilted her head and gave Andy a small smirk. "Yes, Andy, why are all cars referred to as female?" She fluttered her lashes at him and smiled entirely too sweetly.

He flashed a bland look at her as he pulled the door closed. He waited for Rusty to slide in behind the wheel and close his own door. "I'll tell you when your mother isn't around," he promised.

"Okay then," Rusty shook his head. It would be one of _those_ kinds of conversations. He waited for Sharon to step further out of the way before he pulled the car out of the garage. He maneuvered carefully down the short driveway. So far it was running well, better than it had in a long time.

Sharon watched them go and shook her head. She looked around her garage again and made a face. She groaned quietly and made her way inside. She decided that out of sight was out of mind.

The plan had been for the two of them to go out for dinner, but now that she had spent most of the afternoon working, and Andy had spent his time fixing Rusty's car, Sharon decided that what they both needed was a quiet night in. She shed her shoes and put away her purse before making her way through the rest of the townhouse. While she waited for Andy and Rusty to get back, she started preparing dinner.

There was music playing when the two men returned a short while later. They had taken Rusty's car through several blocks and along the coastal highway before finally turning back. Andy was satisfied that it was running well. He sent Rusty inside to shower and change while he cleaned up the garage. He gathered the discarded parts and soiled rags, along with his toolbox and tucked it all back into his truck. He made certain that there was no sign of their afternoon activities left in the garage before he finally let himself into the house.

The air was cool against his heated skin. The first thought on his mind was getting a shower, but he took a moment to allow himself to be distracted by the woman in the kitchen. There were strains of classic rock playing quietly throughout the lower level, and as he watched her, Sharon was moving in time with it, even as she leaned against the open refrigerator door and surveyed the contents.

Tossing together a vegetarian lasagna had been easy enough. Now Sharon was considering a salad to pair with it. She smiled as she sensed Andy join her in the kitchen. Sharon held up a hand before he could take more than a single step toward her. "Shower," she said pointedly.

Andy sighed. He pushed away from the counter that he was leaning against. "Yes ma'am." He glanced around the open floor plan of the townhouse's lower levels. There was no sign of Rusty, and he figured the boy was probably still in the shower. Andy grinned crookedly and tugged his t-shirt over his head. He held it in one hand reached out and snagged Sharon's arm with his other. He pulled her around and into him, Andy turned his face into her neck and nuzzled until she squealed. She was not an overtly ticklish person, but there was spot in the crook of her neck, and another at the backs of her knees, that would have her squirming and laughing within moments. The last few weeks had been spent having a lot of fun learning those little things about one another.

He was sweaty and hot. He smelled musty, with an underlying scent of motor oil mixed with what remained of his cologne. Sharon turned her head away, but she could not contain the laugh when his arm circled her waist and he lifted her against him. She had no recourse but to rest her hands against his shoulders for balance. He was a devious one, but she had barely managed to consider retribution before his lips were traveling upward, to the spot beneath her ear that made her legs weak for an entirely different reason.

"Okay, alright!" Sharon pushed at him. It only took one good nudge and he was letting go of her. Sharon stepped back until she was well out of arm's reach. "Shower," she said with a smile. "Now." He took a half step forward and she arched a brow at him. She did love that man, but she would be more inclined to play if he was not a sweaty, filthy mess.

Andy held his hands up as he stepped back. "I'm going. I just wanted to say hello." A crooked grin curved his lips. "I also thought I would check to see if you wanted to join me…"

His brows bobbed playfully and he flashed that devil may care grin of his that she was coming to love so much. She shook her head slowly. "Go," she told him, and pointed toward the stairs.

"Suit yourself." Andy smirked as he turned. He scooped up his t-shirt from where he had dropped it and left the kitchen.

Sharon rolled her eyes at his retreating back. She turned back to the refrigerator but stood there for only a moment. She pushed the door closed with a low groan and checked the timer on the oven. There was time enough for a quick shower, but she turned the heat down a few degrees, just in case. Sharon followed and found Andy leaning against the wall halfway up the staircase. "Don't be smug."

"Who is being smug? I like to think of it as being hopeful." He waited for her to slide past him and sauntered up the staircase behind her. Andy waited until they had reached the top before he looped an arm around her waist again. Andy kissed the side of her head.

It was not until they were closed off in the bathroom that Sharon decided to voice the question on her mind. She leaned against the vanity and tilted her head at him. "You fixed Rusty's car?"

He dropped his t-shirt in the hamper and reached into the shower to start the water running. Andy glanced over at her. She had that look on her face again. The one she had worn the day that he bought them both lunch a few months ago. She was bewildered and pleased, and there was another emotion simmering beneath the surface, something that he thought he was beginning to recognize although it hadn't been given voice to yet. "He's a college student that works part-time in his mother's bookstore." Andy checked the spray and adjusted the water's temperature. "I gave him the means to take care of it himself. He coulda dropped it at the shop, drained his savings, and taken care of it that way… but there's more to learning how to be independent than always relying on yourself." Andy looked over at her. "He's still learning how to trust other people right? Now Rusty knows that he can trust me, at least where his car is concerned. It's not much, but it's something."

"Andy, that is… a lot." Sharon pushed away from the vanity and walked toward him. "To Rusty it is going to mean a lot more than just taking care of his car. You had no reason to help him other than the fact that you wanted to, and nothing to get out of it but his appreciation." Her hands moved up his arms to his shoulders. "And mine," she added quietly, "but that was not why you did it."

He shifted where he stood, suddenly a little uncomfortable. "No, it wasn't." Andy looked down. He settled his hands against her hips and shook his head. "He's a good kid. He just needs a break." When Andy looked up at her, he shrugged again. "I saved him a few hundred bucks and we didn't have a bad time. He plays chess, and watches documentaries. Your kid has an odd obsession with the news, and he isn't big on sports."

Her hands slid down to rest against his chest. She leaned in to him with a smile, no longer concerned about the state that he was in. "It was something for the two of you to do together. Andy…" She shook her head. Sharon found that she didn't have the words that she wanted and she grappled with that for a moment. Finally she smiled at him and tipped her face up to press a soft kiss against his lips. "Thank you." There were not a lot of people in Rusty's life that he felt like he could count on. That number had just increased by one.

She wasn't the only one at a loss for words. "Didn't do it for you," he said, and despite them both knowing it, he thought it needed to be voiced.

"I know," she whispered. She stared into his dark eyes. "That is why I love you." Those words, previously unsaid, had been hovering in the air between them for a while now. She thought that she might wait until just the right moment to express what was in her heart, but that moment had come, and it was simple and real, and all that she could ever want.

He didn't say anything at first. He simply swept his hands beneath her blouse and helped her remove it. They undressed slowly, and if her silk blouse was tossed aside with his dirty jeans, neither of them seemed to notice or care. Andy pulled her with him when he stepped backward into the shower. Steam and hot water surrounded them. As they moved beneath the spray he pushed his hands into her hair and tipped her face toward him. "I love you," he rasped quietly, and let the steam and heat surround them as he gathered her close.

 **-TBC-**


	6. Chapter 6

**The Bookmine**

 **By Kadi**

 **Rated K+**

 **Disclaimer:** This is not my sandbox, but I do love playing in it!

 **A/N:** This concludes our trip into the alternate universe. Thank you again to everyone who followed along. You rock!

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

This was not how it was meant to happen. Andy realized that once he and Sharon began getting serious about one another that they would eventually need to meet each other's families. More specifically, they would be meeting each other's kids. He and Rusty were on their way to having an okay relationship, and Sharon had met Nicole when he was hurt. His daughter was already fond of his girlfriend. They had gone out to dinner with Nicole and her family a handful of times during the intervening months.

Charlie was his eldest. His son had moved north for a few years, and had lived in Sacramento until the previous winter when he had come home to be closer to the family. Andy couldn't be prouder of the man that he had become, but his relationship with his son wasn't as close as the one that he shared with Nicole. Charlie was older, he remembered more. He knew all of the good and unfortunately, he also knew all of the bad. Both of his kids had witnessed the fights with their mother, the stumbling drunkenness, or the number of times that he missed a family occasion because he was on the road or out with the guys. Nicole was a few years younger than Charlie, though, and her memories were more vague. It was easier for her to forgive and move forward. Charlie just couldn't forget, even if he had managed to forgive his father for those early years, those memories were always in the back of his mind. It made him more wary of the relationship that he had with the man. He tried, they both did, but they were also a pair of stubborn, hot-blooded men. Charlie was his father's son, a fact that he had no problem admitting.

His son had even played ball in school. Charlie was a pitcher. In Andy's opinion he had one of the best arms in the state. It had taken him all the way to a scholarship at Berkeley. Andy still thought that Charlie could have gone deep in the Major League. It wasn't a dream that his son had, though. Charlie had enjoyed pitching in college, but he didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps. He had gotten a degree in Architecture instead. Charlie liked working with his hands; he had an affinity for building, and even more of one for designing the structures that he built. Andy was proud as hell of him, and so with his current situation, Charlie was the first person that he thought of.

Sharon had come to him a few weeks ago. Some of the businesses in the retail district where her store was located were getting together to sponsor a charity event for a Youth Shelter located on Sunset. The shelter was especially important to Sharon. It was where Rusty had gone when he was hungry, and couldn't find the means to feed himself. He had slept there when he needed to feel safe, and had nowhere else to crash. It was also where he had gone when he was sick, or hurt, and there was nowhere else in the world for him. Sharon was convinced that shelter had saved her son's life, and at the very least, sustained it until she had crossed his path and folded him into her family.

By the time that she had finished her story, Andy was already on board with helping out with whatever the charity might be. If she needed cash, or extra hands, or even someone to go out and make people donate, he was willing to help. When she mentioned that the charity event that was being sponsored was a baseball game, he felt even better about it. This was something that he knew about, and he was excited at the idea of being able to help out. When she had asked permission to use his name and his history as a professional player, to bill his stats and highlights from his career, he hadn't minded at all. She asked him to help coach the team, and he agreed.

That wasn't how things had gone down.

Once Sharon's fundraising committee had gotten a good look at his history and began building their team, they decided it would be an even better pull for bringing people out to the game if he was playing. Andy thought that was the worst damned idea he had ever heard. He hadn't played in almost twenty years. He coached players. He didn't suit up and go out on the field with them. His knees were starting to go south, his back had seen better days, and hell but just the idea of it made him feel old. Sharon was enthusiastic about the idea. The committee wanted it, and if it was good for the charity, then she was even more in favor of it. She encouraged him to give it a try. Andy decided pretty quickly that Sharon was out of her damned mind.

That was when he called Charlie. If Andy was going to do this damned thing, he wanted to put together a team of guys that he could read. He was damned if he was going to end up falling on his ass in front of a bunch of people that were paying to basically watch some washed up _old dude_ make a fool of himself. At least, that was how Provenza had described it. Andy had roped him in to helping too. If he was going down, he wasn't going down by himself. Of course, Provenza refused. Andy expected that, it was why he asked him in front of his wife; the newest one, and the one that might just end up sticking it out with the old grump. Andy made for damned sure that Patrice was around when he told Provenza about the fundraiser. She was on board immediately, and although his old friend had originally turned him down, by the next day his tune had changed.

An experienced coach from a local college was a good find for the charity baseball team. Even if they weren't playing to win, it gave them an edge in their fundraising. The rest of the team, and their opposing team, was made up of locals, mainly the family and friends of the business owners that were sponsoring the events. Word spread pretty quickly and some of Andy's players had even signed on to both teams. Matt was one of them. He would be playing on Andy's team. He was doing a lot better than when Andy had first met Sharon. He had a ways to go yet, but his grades had improved. Matt had lowered his class load that spring semester, keeping only enough hours to be able to continue playing. He was taking a couple of classes during the summer to catch up, but it was worth it. Andy was proud of the progress that he made, and even prouder when he volunteered his time for the fundraiser. It felt good having guys around him that he knew, that he could read well.

They had put together a hell of a lineup. With Matt at second base and Charlie pitching, and a couple of his guys in the outfield, Andy didn't feel so bad about putting on his catcher gear and making an idiot out of himself. He kept telling himself that it was for a good cause. That was until Sharon mentioned that her eldest son, Ricky, wanted to help out too. She had mentioned the event to him, and he and his little brother were working on building a closer relationship. Ricky wanted to be part of it, and whether or not he actually volunteered or Sharon was letting him believe that he had after leading him to that conclusion, Andy didn't know. He wasn't going to comment on it either way, but now he had a third base guy, and apparently a pretty good one.

The thing was, Andy had never seen Ricky play. Sharon was excited at the idea, and the young man had gone to school on a scholarship much as his son had. Sharon had still paid for most of Ricky's education at Stanford, but his baseball scholarship had helped out. He hadn't played since, so he was a little out of practice. Andy expressed concerns that the rest of the team was local while Ricky lived just outside of San Francisco in Palo Alto, but Sharon had apparently taken care of that too. Ricky showed up a week after the team was organized and was staying with his mother for the duration. Apparently owning his own computer startup had the added advantages of his being able to work from Los Angeles.

It was an awkward as hell situation. He had his son and hers playing on the same team with him, and his good pal and colleague laughing at the whole damned thing. If that wasn't enough, Rusty had gotten in on the fun. He decided to do a story for his VLOG to cover the fundraiser and what it meant to homeless youths to keep shelters like the one on Sunset operating. He was going to use highlights from the game in the story, and had even gotten a professional cameraman to sign on to shoot the footage for him. Rusty's friend Buzz was going to be volunteering his time and equipment to help out with that aspect of the event.

So if it wasn't bad enough that a lot of people would be watching, it would end up being on film for god only knew how long to come. Andy made a vow that if Sharon ever came to him again, sporting a sweet smile and fluttering her lashes at him, he would run the other damned direction. God almighty he loved that woman, but she did have a way of wrapping him around her little finger before he realized that she had even done it. Besotted. That's what he was. That was what Provenza called it. He was a besotted fool.

Although, she did come up with some of the nicest ways of thanking him, so Andy decided that it couldn't be all that bad. Not that he really needed to be thinking about that when he should be focusing on the game, and definitely not when he was crouched down behind home plate in the middle of a field where dozens of people had shown up and shelled out for a good cause. He absolutely did not need to be thinking about it while he was trying to get it across to his stubborn son that he should lay off the curve balls and come at the kid batting with a changeup. He knew this kid, the player was one of his, he would swing at it, and they would get the out. Charlie was being _his son_ though. He knew what he wanted to throw, and he intended to do it, his catcher's recommendations be damned. To make it even more interesting, his daughter was in the crowd with her husband and stepsons, so no, he definitely did not need to be thinking about all the ways in which Sharon would be making this up to him later.

Andy sighed as he shifted position to get ready for the pitch. His knees were aching, his back was throbbing; he was too damned old to be playing this game. His shoulders were tense and tight and that was only contributing to the pain in his back. His body stiffened as the pitch came. It was another damned curve ball. The kid at bat swung and he heard the sound of the bat connecting with the ball. The ball popped foul, however. Andy stood up, launching out of his position, faster than he probably should have but he ignored the popping of his knees as he shoved the helmet back on his head and tracked the position of the ball. He twisted and felt his back strain. Andy moved as quickly as he could as the ball moved up and overhead. It wasn't going to make it to the fence behind him. He jogged over to get under it as it came down; a thousand words went through his head, and none of them polite enough to be voiced in front of another human being, but he made the catch.

The ball landed in his glove and he was vaguely aware of the umpire calling the out, but they had another problem. The player on second was making a run for third. Andy twisted again, took the lead off, and grimaced at the pain in his shoulder when he pitched the ball to third. Oh yeah, Sharon was going to owe him, but that was only if he lived long enough to collect. He was still cursing up a storm inside his head as he watched Ricky catch the ball and move into position at the base. He stepped on the bag and tagged the player out as he slid in. Andy looked toward the scoreboard. Damn. They still had three innings to go. It was going to be a long day.

In the stands Sharon cheered loudly. She and her group, which had been comprised of Andy's daughter and son-in-law and their family, had managed to get a spot just behind home plate. They were able to see Andy's play firsthand. Sharon had not imagined that he could still play like that. She turned to Nicole as their team made their way back to the dugout to take their turn at bat. "When they asked him to play, I never expected your father to take me up on it."

Nicole started laughing. "Oh god, don't tell him that." She had heard her father's grumbling about the upcoming game. She had spoken to Charlie about it at length. The old man didn't get around on the ball field as well as he used to, but it was all for a good cause and all in good fun.

"Not a chance." Sharon shifted against her stadium cushion and crossed her legs. "This has actually been very good for him. I think he is enjoying it a lot more than he is letting on."

"Wow. He's moving really slow." Rusty appeared beside them. They were taking a break from filming while the teams changed field positions. "I guess that one really hurt."

Sharon's lips pursed. Her head turned slowly. She looked over the rims of her sunglasses at him. "Do you need something?" His flippant remarks were not going unrecognized, but she was choosing to not comment on it, and they both knew it.

"No. Just stopped to say hi." Rusty smiled widely. "Gus went to get us some drinks." His gaze turned back to the dugout. "He's, like, really moving slow right now. Sharon, this might have been a bad idea. Isn't throwing your back out at his age dangerous or something?"

She followed his gaze and yes, Andy was moving a little slowly at removing his catcher's gear. He didn't seem to be at all debilitated, however. It wasn't nearly as bad as Rusty was insisting upon making it. She rubbed her lips together and focused her attention on the man that was with him. Her smile curved widely. "Hello, Buzz. Thank you for helping out today."

"It really was not a problem," he told her, and not for the first time. "Rusty, be nice," he added. He gave the younger man a pointed look. He was determined to poke at his mother and her boyfriend and he was getting dangerously close to that place now where his mouth would get him in to trouble.

"What?" He tried to look innocent. "I am being nice!" Rusty waved a hand toward the dugout. "I'm worried about the old guy. What if he has a heat stroke or something?"

Beside Sharon, Nicole snorted a quiet laugh. The older woman ignored it. Her eyes narrowed behind her sunglasses. "Rusty," there was a warning note in her tone. "Shouldn't you go and film something? I have an idea," she tilted her head at him. "What if you go and interview some of the players that have volunteered their time today." She paused for a moment and then added, quite pointedly, "on the opposing team."

"Better idea. I am going to go ask Andy." Rusty popped up from his seat. "Someone should check on him. You call yourself his girlfriend."

They watched him go. Buzz sighed as he stood up. He gestured with his camera. "I should go and..."

"Yes, I think that you should," Sharon agreed. He would need to film it, but he would be keeping Rusty out of trouble too.

Nicole watched them go. She laughed again. "Dad is going to eat that little smart aleck alive," she mused.

"Yes." A smile slowly curved Sharon's lips. "Yes, he is. I think a little lesson in humility will be very good for Rusty." Her brow arched and she slanted a look at Nicole. "As an added bonus, your brother and his will be right there to watch the entire exchange and I am sure that Ricky and Charlie will be glad to offer whatever assistance they can."

"I..." Nicole didn't know what to say to that. She stared at the other woman. She watched Sharon turn her attention back to the field. There was a smug smile on her face. She had set Rusty up and quite happily. Nicole was certain that the older boys would help, all right. They would provide the banana peel for Rusty to slip on after he finished digging his own hole. Sharon didn't have to take the bait that Rusty was tossing her way; Nicole knew that her father would and with a good deal of frustration and biting sarcasm too. Sharon could sit back and watch it all, stepping in only if it got out of hand. "This may just be more interesting than the game," Nicole decided.

Sharon only hummed. She watched Rusty make his way around the field to the dugout. What followed could only be described as pure enjoyment on her part.

Andy winced as he reached down to free the straps of his leg guards. He pulled them off and placed them on the bench beside him. He had already gotten rid of the chest guards and helmet. His back was definitely giving him hell, and from the look of their batting line up, he was going to be up this inning. He made a mental note to foul out because the idea of having to run the bases was making his knees throb even worse. He was really beginning to understand why Provenza always proclaimed, quite vehemently, that he _did not run_.

Speaking of his old pal, Andy gritted his teeth and resolved to try harder to ignore him. The incessant griping that he was doing wasn't helping his nerves a whole lot. Andy counted to ten and reminded himself that this was all for a really good cause.

"This is not the World Series," he groused. "It's not even the minor leagues. If you want to show off for your girlfriend, do it where the rest of us don't have to watch it." Provenza paced up and down the length of the dugout while he lectured. "Now we're all going to have to deal with your complaining, and if we're lucky, we won't have to carry you out of here when this is over with." He shook his finger at his old friend and colleague, "You know, a man your age should know better. You should be aware of your limitations. We should be sitting in the shade somewhere..."

Andy rolled his eyes and exhaled another slow breath. It was anything but calming. "We are sitting in the shade," he gritted out. He rolled his shoulders and reached for his batting gloves. "I don't know what you're complaining about. You stand by the base and you tell everyone what to do. You got the easy job."

Provenza stopped pacing and turned. He pushed his ball cap back on his head and pointed a finger at the other man. "Yes, I do. Do you know why I have the easy job? Because I am smart enough to know when to say _no_. It isn't a hard word, just two letters. N and O."

"Yeah?" Andy stood up and stretched the muscles in his back. That was a mistake. It was trying to seize up on him. He just hoped they made it through the game before he limped away to lick his wounds in peace. "Funny how you didn't have such an easy time saying no to this. Tell me again, why did you change your mind?"

Provenza's lips pulled back in a sneer. "Shut up. My wife thought it was a good cause, and she's not exactly wrong. Besides, all I'm doing is coaching. That is something that _you_ should have been doing, but oh no. Mister Big-shot-major-league has to show off for the pretty lady."

Rusty chose that moment to slip into the dugout. "She is going to be mad," he said, tagging on to the end of the older man's tirade. "If she finds out that you did all of this out of some macho need to impress her..." Rusty winced. "You're in for it." His head inclined. "How are you anyway? You don't look so great. Should we, like, take you to a hospital or something?"

Ricky's brows climbed into his hairline. Little brother was laying it on really thick. He elbowed the man beside him. When Charlie looked up from tightening the laces on his baseball cleats, Ricky jerked his head toward the other end of the dugout. "Little brother wants to know if we should call an ambulance."

Charlie had his ball cap turned around backwards. He leaned forward and looked down the line of players at his dad. "You know, he has looked better. Maybe we should get a closer look."

"We really should," Ricky agreed. They both left their spots on the bench to move closer.

That little added bit of sarcasm was just the tipping point that he needed. Andy stood up and scowled at all of them. "I'm not that damned old. For the record, I'm doing this for you, not your mom," he snapped at Rusty. "So tell me something, funny guy, have you got a dance routine to go along with all that crap you're yapping?" He grabbed his bat and stepped out of the dugout to start loosening up for his turn at the plate.

"Smooth little brother, real smooth." Ricky dropped an arm around his shoulders. "I don't think he's in such a great mood anymore."

"Nope." Charlie leaned against the fence that separated them from the field. "He's kinda miffed. You know what that means. He's going to swing harder."

"He will probably even hit something," Ricky agreed.

"Then he will have to run." Provenza threw his hands up and walked away, shaking his head. "Love sick idiot."

"Good job, kid." Ricky ruffled his brother's hair with a smirk. He knew that bothered the hell out of him. "Hey, do us a favor, make sure to get it all on camera. I bet mom will want to play it over, and over..."

By the time that the game had ended, Andy wanted nothing more than a hot shower and to fall into a coma. He did not think that there was any part of his body that wasn't in pain. His team had won, however, even if that wasn't the point of their charity exhibition. He wasn't about to give any of the younger players the satisfaction of knowing just how badly he was hurting. Provenza was giving him a knowing look, but Andy had only bared his teeth at the other man and hissed at him as he walked by.

As he left the dugout, his bag with his gear thrown over his shoulder, he found Sharon waiting for him. She was leaning against the concrete wall, hands clasped in front of her. She had pushed her shades into her hair and when she spotted him, a smile curved her lips. He could see the sympathy in her gaze. Andy sighed wearily. He should have known that he wouldn't be able to hide it from her. "Hey." Andy stopped in front of her.

"Hey yourself." Sharon pushed away from the wall and took a step closer. He was sweaty and dirty, but she laid a hand against his side and leaned up to press a kiss to his lips. "Good game," she told him, and meant it. They had all played well, Andy included, even if he was paying for it now. "The turnout today was much higher than anyone expected." She knew that his presence, along with the several members of his college team, had a lot to do with that. There had been quite a lot of advertising done for them by word of mouth. "We are not going to know how much we raised today until sometime in the next week, but I think we did very good." There had been other donations too, placed directly to the shelter, by those who would not be able to attend the game. Sharon had a feeling that it was all going to add up to a very nice sum. "Thank you."

To see her smile like that and to know that her gratitude was real helped him to ignore pain and fatigue that he was feeling. "It was a good day," he told her. "I'm glad that everyone could enjoy it as much as we did." He shifted the strap of his sport bag against his shoulder. The boys stopped beside him and Andy glanced at them. "What do you have going on for the rest of the day," he asked Charlie.

"Well," he flashed a crooked grin. "Rumor has it that there's a game day tradition that has to be upheld." Charlie jerked his head toward Ricky. "Something about pizza and beer?"

Sharon's brows rose. "The tradition is pizza and ice cream," she cast a pointed look at her eldest son. "You can buy your own beer, if you insist on having it. Just remember, most of this team isn't legally old enough to partake." Her head tilted and her lips pursed. She thought about it for just a moment before nodding her head. "Tradition is tradition. Pizza it is. Go and ask the others if they would like to join us. We can meet up at _Mariano's_. Make sure that they know that it is my treat." It would be big enough to seat a crowd, especially if the majority of their team ended up joining them.

"First round is on you," Ricky nudged Charlie as they left to round up the rest of their team.

Andy shook his head as the boys took off. "Sharon, you don't have to do that." He grinned at her. Andy wondered how long it had been since she had met a group of boys this large. "The minute those guys hear the words _free pizza_ it's going to be all over."

She laughed. "Probably. It has not been _that_ long, Andy." Sharon moved alongside him and slipped her arm around his waist. "I will expense it to the store. It can be considered a charitable write-off." Not that she was worried about the money, not on a day like this one. "How bad is it?" She asked gently, quietly, so the others wouldn't hear.

A ragged sigh was her answer. "Not that bad," he lied. When she rolled her eyes toward him, Andy shrugged. "It will be okay. I may want to die later."

Sharon hummed sympathetically and rubbed his back. "Nicole is going to join us for dinner with Dean and the boys," it was obvious that she had already planned on taking everyone out for pizza. "I think they were as impressed today as I was."

"Oh yeah?" Andy dropped an arm around her shoulders. His brow arched, but his eyes were dancing with amusement. "How impressed were you?"

"Well, now that you mention it…" She began with a small smirk. "There is a bag in my car. I thought that I might follow you home this evening and show you."

Andy kissed the side of her head. "Best day ever," he decided, and his low chuckle joined hers as they made their way to the parking lot.

"That does not bode well for us," Sharon commented. Across the lot their sons, his and both of hers, had their heads together. "Did we think that they would get along this well?"

"I was kind of hoping." Andy played with the ends of her hair as they walked. "It's not a bad thing, though. Right?" He looked down at her, genuinely wondering. He had already decided that she was it for him, but it had only been a few months.

"No." She smiled gently up at him. "It really is not. I am actually pleased that they seem to like one another. If this keeps going, that will be important."

Andy stopped walking. He turned her toward him. His hand slipped down to hold hers. His eyes held a wealth of meaning as he held her gaze. "It will keep going," he said.

"How can you be so sure?" Sharon's question was built on a genuine curiosity. They could not predict the future. She knew what she wanted. The problem was that there were often forces outside of themselves. Life did not always agree. They both had pasts that had taught them that.

"Because it's what I want," he told her. "It's what you want. There's not a lot that you could do that would make me stop loving you and I'm going to do my best to make sure that I don't blow it all to hell either. I'm not going anywhere."

It was as close to a promise as either of them could make at this point in their lives. Some day that might change. They might be able to strengthen that commitment. For now, it just worked. She took a step forward and moved back into the crook of his arm. "Neither am I," she told him. "I want it too."

"Then let's have it." It was as simple as that, as far as he was concerned. The truth was that Andy knew it was also complicated as hell. They had their jobs, their kids, friends, and families that they would have to juggle and blend. It wasn't going to be easy. They were going to fight. They wouldn't always like each other. As long as they kept holding on, they could work out whatever got tossed into their path. No, they couldn't predict what would happen. That was a book that hadn't been written yet. Those pages remained empty, just waiting to be filled.

 **~FIN**


End file.
